on the painting? What limits of tolerance have already been breached? A
great mistake of past generations of restorers was to assume they could
ignore or override the natural tendency of wood to warp, twist, split, and
rot. Many past treatments have tried to impose structural restrictions on
panels without imposing corresponding control of the environment. The
long-term results of cradling, cross-grain battens, and rigid frame fitting
are clearly demonstrated—so, too, are the innumerable cases in which
restorers have regarded the wood as a simple nuisance and have thinned
panels to a wafer (a process that actually made them moretroublesome) or
jettisoned them altogether by transferring the paint to a new support.
As conservators we see examples of these attitudes each day of
our working lives, and we must deal with the consequences. It is no use,
however, to say, “Well, Iwouldn’t have started from here.” All of the hor-
rors, misjudgments, and merely careless acts have already occurred; we
must start from what has resulted. Conservators of panel paintings must
be empiricists above all else. Our starting point is a situation in which cen-
turies of aging, neglect, and malpractice have transformed the condition
of many panel paintings into something far removed from their original
states. Our conservation options are limited by the situation, but there are
still choices to be made in terms of prevention and intervention. These
choices are explored in all their variety during this symposium.
In this volume we learn about the pros and cons of balsa backing,
attached and unattached auxiliary supports, retention or cutting out of
deteriorated areas, and reinforcement with battens and V-shaped wedges.
We see traditional hand tools, used with consummate skill; ingenious
clamping jigs; and state-of-the-art low-pressure systems. We also learn
something of old regional practices that may cause us to reexamine our
own understandings of the properties ofwood. One such example is
the so-called Munich treatment, in which shellac in alcohol is copiously
brushed onto the backs of warped panels to reduce their curvature.
Clearly the shellac must be acting as more than a simple moisture barrier.
The question raised by the Munich treatment opens up a whole realm of
study of the effects ofsolvents other than water on wood.
We are privileged to be witnesses as the world’s leading practition-
ers of the conservation of panel paintings question one another, debate
choices, and describe actions. Here we learn in detail about the mistakes
of the past, directions of the present, and speculations about the future.
We also explore unfamiliar corners of art history and the history
of conservation, and touch, in passing, on the methodologies of historical
inquiry. On this historiographical note, I must mention another famous
legend concerning a panel painting ascribed to Michelangelo, the
Entombmentin the National Gallery, London. One of the abiding myths
about this picture recounts that the painting was discovered in the nine-
teenth century doing duty as a market stall in Rome “for the sale offish,
frogs, etc. and old pans, gridirons etc. etc.” The myth grew when, based
on this story, Helmut Ruhemann, who cleaned the painting in 1968,
explained the hundreds of little, raised, discolored spots on the surface
ofthe picture as the excreta offlies attracted by the fish.
Recent scholarship has blown the legend apart. The brown spots
are not flyspecks at all, but straightforward mold. And the story about
thepanel being used as a stall or tabletop becomes distinctly shaky when
we trace it back to the Roman dealer who had the painting and discover
that he used exactly the samestory about at least one other panel byxx Bomford