45 Vindry 1969; in fact, it was a picture of Neefs, Saint Pierre délivré de prison,Louvre (inv. 1591).
46 Inv. 748, Titian, Le Couronnement d’épines:Archives of the Louvre Z^4 O-1796-sd (but actually
from 31 July 1799). See also IBB^4 Z(25 August 1798); IBB^5 (4 and 19 December 1800): and
Archives Account, Year Nine (1801).
47 Archives of the Louvre, Accounts (second quarter, 1796–97), administration of the Musée
Central des Arts.
48 Marijnissen 1967:n. 62: letter from the marquis de Marigny dated from Ménars, 18 September- The cradle currently visible on the back of Rubens’s La Kermesse(Louvre, inv. 1797)
either is from 1770 or is the cradle that could have been redone in 1825 by François-Toussaint
Hacquin (Archives of the Louvre, P 16, September 1825); it comprises twelve slats, one of
which is thicker and glued (not molded), and seventeen mobile crossbars.
49 Archives of the Louvre, P 16 (1882) (cf. n. 43).
50 Mouseion1938:243: this expression, “offield [de champ],” will become “of edge [de chant]” in
Marijnissen 1967:319.
51 Painting on poplar backed with chestnut but not cradled: Ambrogio di Baldese, La Vierge et
l’Enfant avec six saints. Pictur es backed and cradled: Matteo di Giovanni, Sainte Catherine de
Sienne,and Master of the Crucifix of Pesaro, La Crucifixion(Avignon, Musée du Petit-Palais,
C215, MI 369; C 200, MI 578; and C 216, MI 420, respectively).
52 Investigation of S. Bergeon, 1982.
53 See Diderot and d’Alembert 1765:596.
54 Archives of the Service de Restauration des Musées Nationaux. The very old split affecting the
upper part of the Mona Lisawas the subject of a palliative treatment of two walnut dovetail
tenons, glued with a fabric in between to prevent what was believed to be too much stress.
These dovetail tenons required that the poplar be hollowed, but only slightly (less than a third
of the thickness of the original panel). The restorer Denizard, who came to the Louvre in 1887,
said that this repair was made by Bouvard; this examination of the back is mentioned in 1911,
just after the theft ofAugust 1911, as a major testimony for the identification of the work.
55 Lead white, basic carbonate of lead, with its excellent drying properties, has often been used
mixed with oil. It was believed that this would harden wood. After such treatment, the back
was covered up with brown paint: X radiography reveals the very worm-eaten condition of
the wood when the tunnels are filled in this way (Rembrandt, Le Boeuf écorché,Louvre, M 169).
56 Permali is the commercial name of a wood impregnated with Bakelite, a hard resin, so that
the wood is not highly reactive to variations of atmospheric moisture content.
57 Archives of the Service de Restauration des Musées de France: Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa;
attacked by worms, those very flexible beech crossbars were replaced in 1970 by similar ones
of maple, which was aged and pretreated with Xylamon.
58 Initially part of the Musées Nationaux, but as of 1966, incorporated into the adminstration of
the Musées de France.
59 For two centuries, it was the practice at the Louvre for an artisan or a member of a profession
to work in a state building, to be supervised by the state within the large-scale apparatus of
the state, but to retain private status and supply self-owned equipment.
60 Archives of the Louvre P 16 (1957–74, invoice of 15 November 1965). C. Huot’s first work
concerns the cradle ofLa Déposition de la Croix,by the Master of Saint Barthelemy.
61 Illustrated in Bergeon 1990:24, fig. 2: Benvenuto di Giovanni, Le Martyre d’un évêque,Musée du
Petit-Palais (MI 514), Avignon; this precise intervention was made in 1967.
62 For a discussion of Paraloid, see Mora and Toracca 1965. For a discussion of the mobile cross-
bars, see Carità 1956.
63 In 1968 works of sverzatura were undertaken for Bartolo di Fredi,Adoration des bergers(C 71,
inv. 20267), and Zanino di Pietro, Polyptyque(C 74, MI 421).
284 Bergeon, Emile-Mâle, Huot, and Baÿ