Falls and Scares a 17th Century Painting in the Museum
The restoration procedures have already begun today. The work remains on display
An elderly visitor to the Galleria Borghese in Rome, one of the major Italian museums, has fallen. A seventeenth-century painting by Guido Reni was thus damaged. It happened at 5 pm, Italian time, on Wednesday 4 May 2022. The restoration procedures have already begun today. The work remains on display. The accommodation will take place at the end of the exhibition.
The cause may have been an illness. An official note says that the woman bumped into the painting. Then it suffered a slight superficial tear. It appears to be about 3–4 centimeters, near the edge.
The American lady is a lover of art. She is sorry for having damaged the canvas. Among other things, it is a particular work because the painting is on both sides.
The exhibition on the work of the seventeenth-century master is in progress until 22 May. Around the canvases, there is a “border” at the calf to avoid walking on the nearby mosaics on the floor.
A journalist had already fallen on the day of the inauguration. Il Corriere della Sera wrote it. He stumbled as he stepped back to better admire the works. Also in the following days, there would have been another 3 or 4 falls of visitors.
Today the curators of the Museum of Rome and the Capitoline Superintendence went to the Galleria Borghese. They checked what happened and evaluated the next steps with Director Francesca Cappelletti. Roma Capitale officials agree that this is a small crack. The lesion did not lead to further negative outcomes on the pictorial surface.
They decided to intervene immediately to stabilize the situation with protective paints. The conditions of the painting cannot evolve because it is stable. Thus the painting will remain on display until the end of the exhibition. A definitive intervention will take place the day after closing.
The occasion will be very useful to deepen the studies of painting. In particular on the technique and on the support. A complete conservative review will update the restoration interventions. Before, the painting exhibited at the Borghese Gallery was not visible to the public. At the end of the restoration, it will be able to show itself in the rooms of Palazzo Braschi.
It was commissioned in 1610 to Guido Reni by the Confraternity of the Sacre Stigmata of San Francesco di Campagnano Romano. The processional banner “San Francesco receives the stigmata” has always remained private property. Then it arrived in the Capitoline collections in 1960.
