Revealed: the painting beneath
PAINSTAKING conservation work has removed years of grime from a painting that was once the star of the National Museum of Wales’s collection and sheds new light over its attribution. The Virgin and Child with Pomegranate was bequeathed to the Cardiff museum by sisters Gwendoline and Margaret Davies, two of the Principality’s leading art collectors, in the 1950s. Then, it was thought to be the work of Sandro Botticelli, but it was later reclassified as being by a follower of the Italian Master and it languished in the museum’s storerooms for decades.
Rediscovered by Bendor Grosvenor, presenter of BBC4’S Britain’s Lost Masterpieces, the Virgin and Child underwent extensive restoration, which revealed that it had been significantly overpainted. ‘It was treated by a dealer in the 1940s, I think, and he obviously had it painted up by a restorer to make it look like an old, good-condition painting,’ explains restorer Simon Gillespie. ‘It was oldfashioned skulduggery: the dealer had it painted up artistically, very much in the manner of Botticelli, then had cracks put into that paint and dirt put into those cracks. It was quite convincing until you realised all the cracks had been added.’
Mr Gillespie and his studio spent more than 130 hours exposing the original layers. The technique and style that emerged were such that they led experts to reconsider the attribution. ‘You could see there were really good-quality small details that had been badly treated by the last restorer and blended in with the new paint,’ says Mr Gillespie, who at the time speculated the painting might have been Botticelli’s own hand, alongside that of artists in his studio.
The definitive attribution is revealed during tonight’s programme—and on www.countrylife.co.uk tomorrow —when the painting will be displayed at the National Museum of Wales. CP