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Press Release: 3 May 2004
Barber Masterpiece Gets Public Make-Over
Gallery visitors are to get a rare chance to see the conservation of a major work of art at first hand this summer when the Barber Institute of Fine Arts embarks on a full restoration of one of its largest and most valuable Old Master paintings.
The Baroque masterpiece The Marriage at Cana by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo is to be the focus of a major cleaning and conservation programme for the first time in more than 50 years.
What is more, members of the public will be able to watch the restoration process as it happens, and even discuss the project with conservator Stewart Meese as he works.
The painting will be taken from the main galleries and installed in the reserve gallery for the duration of the project, which runs from Monday 3 May until the end of August.
The Marriage at Cana is the latest in a series of restoration projects covering the Barber's Old Master paintings, which has spanned more than ten years. A comprehensive survey of the permanent collection was commissioned by Director Richard Verdi in 1990. It was carried out by National Gallery of Scotland conservator John Dick, who drew up a priority list of works that needed urgent attention.
"I've always believed art historians had to work in close collaboration with conservators, who are in touch with the painting as physical object in the way an art historian never can be," says Professor Verdi. "Being warned that every painting in my care was a potentially ill patient was a cause for alarm!"
"The Murillo is unquestionably one of the greatest works in our collection. It came out in our 'book of health' as needing cleaning and maybe relining, although it wasn't falling apart, so it had been put on the back burner until now.
"I've always realized that it was looking a bit lack-lustre, and a surface cleaning and maybe even more was desirable -- you never know what you're going to find once the process has begun. Now the time has come for the Murillo."
The picture will be restored at the University of Birmingham's Barber Institute partly because of the logistics and risks of moving such a large and valuable painting out of the building.
"It's the minimum of physical stress for the painting," explains Professor Verdi. "But also, why deprive our visitors of what is bound to be a revelation? It's virtually unheard of for the public to be able to see the conservation process as it happens, and they will be riveted by the experience."
| For further information, please contact Andrew Davies, Barber Press and Marketing Officer, on 0121 414 2946 or andrewdavies@barber.org.uk |