relinings with marouflage^21 on the back side, as protection against humidity,
for the Louvre, as well as for the studios of Versailles, Compiègne,
Chantilly, and the Château d’Eu. In 1839 Landry put “four cleats and
marouflage” on the back side ofRubens’s La Kermesse.Among a huge
quantity ofwork of unknown date are some invoices concerning wood,
one indicating that he cradled a picture by Holbein.^22 In 1843 he removed
the paint layer ofPortrait d’homme,by an unknown artist, from its wood.^23
He also proposed to transfer Raphael’s La Vierge au voile,because it was
very worm-eaten. However, the latter intervention, proposed to the
painter Granet, who was in charge of restoration at the Louvre, must not
have satisfied Granet, and, fortunately, the transfer was not done.^24
The administration of the Louvre has long held tests to select
restorers.^25 When Villot, the new head curator of paintings, arrived in
1848, Jeanron, director of the Musées Nationaux, sent the minister of the
interior a “report on the situation of the studios of restoration of paint-
ings of the Louvre Museum and their reorganization.” A plan for a compe-
tition for restorers and reliners was drafted. Landry was required to pass it,
even though he had already been working in the Louvre for a long time.
A rough draft of the decision resulting from the competition does not
mention Landry but does mention others, including the elder Momper,
Mortemard, the younger Momper, and Piolé (or Poile).
Yet, Landry—following the work of Robert Picault in 1750,
J.-L. Hacquin in 1780, and F.-T. Hacquin in 1803—had performed the
fourth transfer of Andrea del Sarto’s La Charitéin 1845 so perfectly that it
still remains solid (Emile-Mâle 1982b). A cleaning has recently been done,
but the support has remained in its 1845 condition. Perhaps Villot was
annoyed by the length of time necessary for those works. He was a
difficult man, who had an inspection made in 1848 when he arrived,
which was especially unpleasant for Landry.^26
Gruyer, curator of paintings, in his detailed 1882 report to Mantz,
director general of the Musée des Beaux-Arts, on the state of the restora-
tion of paintings, indicated that the paintings in the Louvre seemed
neglected.^27 But a large-scale policy ofrestoration was not established, and
by the end of the century the authorities and Gruyer’s successors consid-
ered a single restorer—Briottet, followed in 1887 by Denizard, assisted
by C. Chapuis—to be sufficient for all the interventions required for sup-
ports.^28 The wood specialist M. Bouvard, at 63, boulevard Garibaldi, Paris,
was called on to assist with works that were particularly important, such
as the Avignon Pietàin 1905 and, prior to 1911, the Mona Lisa.
Roger Castor (b. 1914) worked at the Louvre between 1953 and- A cabinetmaker by profession, he was probably recommended to
Germain Bazin, chiefcurator of paintings at the Louvre, by Lucien Aubert
(restorer at the Louvre beginning in 1910). During Castor’s tenure at the
Louvre, he was entrusted with important paintings, and for the first time
the invoices for interventions are very detailed.^29 His work has a somewhat
traditional and systematic character: dovetail tenons across the grain inlaid
in the thickness of the original panel, and cradles, which are either simple
and functional or purely aesthetic, placed on backings ofsilver fir^30 or oak.^31
But some of his works have an innovative nature, like the creation
of frames in new material (Permali or Bakelized wood) fitted with corru-
gated iron in the groove.^32 He was also the first to use Xylamon^33 to disin-
fect worm-eaten panels, such as the Annonciationby Cosimo Rosselli. For
W P S: T H Y H F 267