The panel comes from the museum of the city of Ath, located
in a large eighteenth-century house whose rooms are damp and barely
heated in winter. There is no RH-control system. The harsh climatic con-
ditions had caused serious damage to the support. The joints of the panel,
blocked in its frame, had come apart, and several cracks had appeared
(Fig. 1). The boards presented a severely convex profile, in addition to a
spiral distortion. Tunnels of xylophagous insects had caused the wood to
become more reactive to variations in RH.
Except for an old restoration consisting of glued strips of linen
over the open joints, the support had never been altered. The paint layer,
however, was coated with numerous overpaintings. To mask irregulari-
ties in the support, the joints and crack areas had been broadly filled in
and retouched.
The distortions were disturbing to the viewer and made it impos-
sible to frame and display the work. Therefore, a decision was made to
straighten it with a backing while leaving the Antwerp seal visible. The
treatment of the support consisted first of eliminating the linen reinforce-
ments, then consolidating the worm-eaten wood with a solution of 10%
Paraloid B72 in paraxylene, and finally of gluing the splits and joints
(Fig. 2). All the cavities were filled with oak sawdust sifted to less than
0.25mm in a 25% polyvinyl acetate and water emulsion. Subsequently
thepaint layer was protected by a facing of silk paper glued with beeswax,
and the panel was placed in a microclimate box, where the humidity wasB P P: R C 367Figure 1
Francken family (attrib.), Adoration of the
Magi,seventeenth century. Oil on panel,
71.4 3 104 cm. Musée Athois, Ath, Belgium.
The condition of the painting before conser-
vation, with splits and cracks, is shown.