T
, ,has a comprehensive collection
of western European paintings from the thirteenth to the twentieth
century. There are some one thousand panels in the collection,
more than half of which are Italian and painted on poplar. The other main
schools—Dutch, Flemish, and German—usually used oak. Other woods
used include lime and beech (used by Lucas Cranach the Elder, f or example),
walnut or fruitwood (pear), and pine.
The National Gallery has mostly conventional panel structures of
different types ofwood with members glued together, mostly with animal
glues, and usually with the grain running in the same direction as the
joins. There are also some complex structures, of which Rubens’s panels,
such as A View of Het Steen(NG66) and The Watering Place(NG 4815), are
prime examples (Brown, Reeve, and Wyld 1982) (Fig. 1).
Most of these panels have undergone some form of conservation
work, ranging from crack repair to added buttons, battens, and cradles, or
thinning and transfers. For the most part this work has been carried out
prior to or at the time of acquisition by restorers abroad and in England.403Anthony M. Reeve
Structural Conservation of Panel Paintings at the
National Gallery, London
Figure 1
X ray of Peter Paul Rubens, TheWatering
Place,1615–22. Oil (identified) on panel,
99.4 3 135 cm. National Gallery, London
(NG 4815). The eleven panel members, as
well as the buttons and battens, are seen
before conservation treatment.