Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice

Abstract

Extensive examination of Andrea
Mantegna's Adoration of the Magi at
the J. Paul Getty Museum reveals
Mantegna's unusual technique of
painting. Although this painting was
generally described as painted in
tempera or oil, analysis has revealed
the medium to be distemper (animal
glue). The rationale for this tech­
nique is explained here in terms of
aesthetic and environmental con­
straints of the fifteenth century as
well as the art-historical context of
the period.

Andrea Mantegna's Adoration of the Magi

Andrea Rothe

Department of Paintings Conservation

The J. Paul Getty Museum.

17985 Pacific Coast Highway

Malibu, California

USA

Introduction

In 1985 the J. Paul Getty Museum acquired the Adoration oj the Magi by

Andrea Mantegna (1431-1 506) (Plate 2 3). Nothing was known about the

painting until the early nineteenth century, when it was thought to have been

brought to England by Alexander Baring, first Lord Ashburton (1). It was

first shown publicly in London at the Royal Academy in 1871, and then at

New Gallery in 1894; but with few other exceptions, the painting was not

readily accessible. This might explain why it was sometimes confused with a

nineteenth-century copy, now in the Johnson collection in Philadelphia (2).

The Adoration was shown again in London in 1981 in the exhibition Splen­

dours of the Gonzaga, and has since been widely accepted as a late work by

Mantegna, dated circa 1495-1505. The composition of this popular subject

must have been much admired, fo r at least seven copies by other artists survive

(3).

The horizontal composition with five half-length figures placed tightly

around the Christ Child bears resemblance to other works by Mantegna, such

as The Virgin and Child with Saints in the Galleria Sabauda in Turin and The

Presentation in the Temple in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Mantegna seems

to have been the initiator of this type of composition, which inspired Gio­

vanni Bellini, Cima da Conegliano, and Vincenzo Catena, among others. Re-

markable are the descriptive fe atures and the distinctive skin color of each

individual figure. Noteworthy is Mantegna's fo reshortening of the Christ

Child's right leg, which is reminiscent of the Lamentation in the Brera in

Milan. Most of the execution adheres to Mantegna's original composition,

with the exception of the faces of the Virgin and the Christ Child, in which

the X-radiograph shows Mantegna's original reworking or pentimenti

(Fig. 1).

Analysis of painting technique used in the Adoration

In order to properly restore the Adoration, extensive research on the unusual

technique of this painting was necessary. Although the Getty Adoration was

generally described as painted in tempera or oil, recent analysis carried out

by the Getty Conservation Institute has identified the medium as distemper

(animal glue) (4). Pioneering research done by John Mills of the National

Gallery in London and other experts in the 1970s drew attention to the fact

that this medium was widely used during the Gothic and Renaissance periods

(5). Within the next decade more accurate methods of analysis were devel­

oped (6). The principal reason fo r the lack of more information has been the

difficulty in analytically distinguishing egg from glue, as both are complex

proteins. The analytical results can also be unreliable because infusions of glues

from later relinings and consolidants make it difficult to determine whether

they are part of the original medium.

Throughout the history of painting, the use of glue as a medium has been

quite common, yet very often paintings in this medium are classified as tem­

pera paintings, such as the mummy portraits of the late Fayum period (third

century C.E.), which were no longer painted in encaustic, but probably with

a glue medium (7). In Germany and particularly in the Netherlands of the

fifteenth and sixteenth century, thousands of distemper paintings were pro-

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