130-year-old painting will hang again following restoration

SARASOTA, Fla. — After spending more than half a century in storage, a massive oil painting will once again hang in the Ringling Museum of Art after undergoing major restoration made possible by a grant awarded to the museum.

“Emperor Justinian,” created by Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant in 1886, is a towering 13.3- by 22-foot oil on canvas piece depicting the Byzantine Emperor atop his throne in the company of his consuls. The painting was acquired by John Ringling from a private collector in 1929 after being owned by and displayed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for many years, and is considered one of the most important works by the French artist.

Barbara Ramsay, the chief conservator at The Ringling said the painting was on display in The Ringling museum in the 1940s, but has spent most of the past few decades tightly rolled with the painted side facing in, causing cracking and lifting. The painting has been unrolled multiple times over the past 35 years to check its condition and implement preventative measures against further deterioration.

The Getty Foundation awards grants to museums directed toward many areas of need, including specific aspects of conservation. The Ringling was invited to submit a proposal in the “Conserving Canvas” initiative. The project targets conserving artwork painted on canvas, with an educational focus of providing new teaching experiences for mid-career painting conservators in structural treatment. The Ringling Museum of Art Foundation was awarded a grant of $176,800 to combat the deterioration and structural damage the painting experienced over the years and to provide training residencies for several museum conservators.

The grant covers only what is determined to be structural conservation, not aspects considered esthetic conservation such as removing or applying varnish. Ramsay said the grant will account for about two-thirds of the total cost the piece requires for complete restoration plus travel costs for the trainees and other participants.

Ramsay said the grant is an exciting opportunity for the museum, as funds for major conservation projects can be difficult to come by.

The complete restoration will be no small task due to the significant damage the painting has sustained over the years, said Ramsay. The process will include structural treatment such as repairing and reinforcing tears and holes in the canvas; attaching canvas edge strips to fortify the fragile tacking edges; removal of harmful materials such as residual adhesive; lining the original canvas; and mounting the lined painting onto a new stretcher frame. Removal of grime and discolored varnish, as well as re-varnishing and inpainting of areas of paint loss will also be necessary to make the painting ready for display.

An integral aspect of the “Conserving Canvas” grant is the focus on educating mid-career conservators on the technical processes such as tear repair and application of a lining canvas to promote structural integrity. Over the years, a trend toward minimal intervention methods adopted by conservators internationally has created a knowledge gap for many younger conservators who have not had much opportunity to line or remove the lining of a painting.

The Ringling Conservation Laboratory will not be taking on the project alone. The treatment is being carried out by Artcare Conservation in Miami, where a team of conservators from across the globe will work on different aspects of the restoration process through January. Four mid-career conservators from the U.S., Canada and Colombia will be flying in to work as trainees on the project. Assistant conservator Megan Salazar-Walsh and Conservation Intern Elizabeth Robson from the Ringling will also be contributing to multiple stages of structural work as trainees. “Conservation is satisfying work for many reasons. We are able to get closer to the art than most people are allowed to be,” Ramsay said. “We carry out research and play a role in preserving the actual art object and the intent of the artist.”

The Ringling already has the exact display location for the painting in mind, said Sarah Cartwright, the curator of collections at the museum. “That was part of the reasoning for being interested in restoring this painting.”

Once fully restored, the painting will hang in Gallery 21, said Cartwright, and “will take up the entire wall and be the first thing you see when you enter the gallery from the main entrance to the museum.”

The decision to restore the painting came from the desire to showcase more large-scale pieces in the museum. “We wanted to focus on the larger late 19th century paintings, of which “Emperor Justinian” is one of the finest. When John Ringling built the museum he was thinking on this scale,” Cartwright said.

The conservation project will take several months, but after the restoration is complete, the Ringling will display a largely unseen masterpiece that is expected to become an iconic work for the museum.

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Information from: Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune, http://www.heraldtribune.com

Sav Franz, The Associated Press

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