When van der Doort mentioned the defacement ofThe R ape of
Europaby quicksilver, he was referring to the damage to the paintings
brought from Mantua by sea. The paintings were blackened when a cargo
of currants fermented beside a cargo of mercury (by some process about
which we can only speculate). De Mayerne, the physician to James I and
later to the queen of Charles I, Henrietta Maria, suggested methods of
cleaning. Jerome Lanier, the restorer brother of Nicholas, had success in
cleaning the oil paintings but had less success with tempera panels.^13
Some 225 years later, Richard Redgrave set himself the task of mak-
ing an inventory of the paintings in the Royal Collection, which had steadily
increased after a portion of the collection ofCharles I, which was dispersed
during the Commonwealth, was bought back after the Restoration (MillarH S C P P G B 245Figure 12
Giacomo Palma Vecchio, Sacra
Conversazione. Oil on panel, 60 3 81.1 cm.
Royal Collection (181).
Figure 13
Giacomo Palma Vecchio, Sacra
Conversazione,reverse.