The Structural Conservation of Panel Paintings

T

  a sur vey of the history of structural panel

painting treatments in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. Since

much historical research remains to be done on this subject, the

present discussion must be somewhat schematic.

Beginning in the late eighteenth century, some literature about restoration

appears in the German language. Contemporary journals in technology

and fine arts published news about art techniques and gav e information

about recent restoration treatments of famous works of art. Articles pub-

lished in French or English were usually translated into German, very often

within the same year. For example, a translated extract from the important

English book The Handmaid to the Artsappeared immediately in 1758

(Bibliothek1758). Names of prominent eighteenth-century restorers, such as

Robert Picault, were well known among the educated German classes. The

first Ger man report about Picault appeared in 1759 (Bibliothek1759:830).

From 1816 to 1849 the historian Ludwig Schorn edited the Kunstblatt(Dahn

1953), which presented, among other subjects, much information about

current restoration treatments and discussions about critical conservation

situations in museums, such as the circumstances in the Dresden Painting

Gallery during the early nineteenth century. Recent research about the

activities of Italian restorer Pietro Palmaroli in Dresden proves that these

journals received much public attention (Schölzel 1994:1–24).

All of the eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century literature

shows a lack of precise technical information about restoration. Due to

the zeitgeist, only a change in the aesthetic quality of a painting was con-

sidered worthy of description. Except for some small restoration books,

not one word concerning treatments of wooden painting supports appears

in the literature.

Three of the earliest important German-language books on

restoration appeared between 1827 and 1828 (Wagner 1988:11–30). The

firstsmall work, Über Restauration alter Oelgemäldeby the painter-restorer

Christian Köster (1784–1851) came out in 1827 in Heidelberg. It was fol-

lowed by two more booklets, in 1828 and 1830 (Köster 1827, 1828, 1830). In

the third booklet we find an appendix by Jacob Schlesinger entitled “Über

Tempera-Bilder und deren Restauration” (Köster 1830:35–47). Together

Köster and Schlesinger, who belonged to the group of so-called romantic

painter-restorers, carried out some restoration for the Boisserée brothers in

Critical Survey of the

Historical Sources

200

Ulrich Schiessl

History of Structural Panel Painting Conservation

in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland