RESTORED RUBENS MASTERPIECE BACK ON Public view

 

Peter Paul Rubens' early masterpiece Cain Slaying Abel has return to public display following conservation treatment.

 

Cain Slaying Abel (after treatment) by Peter Paul Rubens

c The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London

 

The painting has been restored as part of the Bank of America Art Conservation Project

 

 

 

 

Why was conservation necessary?

 

Cain slaying Abel entered The Courtauld Gallery as part of Count Antoine Seilern's Princes Gate Bequest in 1978.

Its state of preservation, with warped panels, splitting joins, scratches, uneven surface with areas of paint loss and yellowed and opaque varnish, has been a long-standing concern.

 

The oak panel showed problems at the joins between the planks, and earlier attempts to rejoin the panel had left a stepped profile and the join at the centre had started to fail, resulting in the paint surface beginning to blister.

 

At some point during the 19th century a lattice of wood, known as a cradle, was applied to the reverse of the panel. This was intended to prevent the planks from moving. However, it had caused stress to the panel support and had also attracted woodworm.

 

 

 

The conservation treatment of Cain slaying Abel

 

The eleven-month conservation procedure has been undertaken by Kate Stonor and Clare Richardson in the Department of Conservation and Technology of The Courtauld Institute.

 

The cradle was removed, a delicate operation in itself and the small woodworm holes were filled with cellulose fibres. A thin strip of timber, attached to the far left of the composition, was retained, as it must have been added to the painting at an early date, perhaps even in Rubens’s workshop. The parts of earlier restorations which had compromised the painting were carefully removed, as was the yellowed varnish which disfigured the subtly modelled cool tones of the landscape in the background.

They also had to find precise matches for the pigments and glazes where restoration was needed in order to stabilise the painting for the next hundred years.

 

 

Clare Richardson prepares a shaped foam pad to accommodate the panel curvature, as panel work progresses to remove the non-original cradle structure from the back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kate Stonor uses a chisel to remove the cradle structure from the reverse, whilst the oak back of Rubens’s panel is protected with card inserts.

 

For this work, panel joins have been supported by the addition of small aluminium tabs adhered temporarily to the reverse.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This shows varnish removal in progress, leaving a triangular area uncleaned on the left. The yellowed varnish is particularly disfiguring to the subtly modelled cool tones of the landscape.

 

 

 

 

 

Rubens’ artistic practice

 

Research undertaken during the conservation treatment has provided important new information about Rubens’s artistic practice. In general, Rubens made use of good quality timber when he painted on panel – there was a ready supply in seventeenth-century Antwerp, mostly oak from the forests bordering the Baltic Sea.

 

However, dendrochronological analysis (studying the pattern of rings in a piece of wood) by Ian Tyers showed that Rubens had used oak with some poorer quality sapwood for Cain slaying Abel. The use of this cheaper material may explain the problems which developed over time with the panel joins, but it also suggests that Rubens had no potential patron in mind for this painting. It seems likely that he painted it speculatively, as an advertisement of his talents.

 

Did Rubens work alone?

 

Rubens appears to have worked economically, not wasting time on areas of the painting which would be less visible, such as Cain’s back.

 

But was he working alone?

 

Infrared reflectography (an imaging technique which records rays on the infrared spectrum, which can penetrate some paint layers) has revealed detailed underdrawing for the landscape.

 

This is much more precise and detailed than most underdrawings by Rubens, and he may have enlisted the help of a specialist painter for the landscape. This was a common practice for Rubens later in his career, when not only did he employ a large workshop of assistants - including at one time the young van Dyck - but he collaborated with master painters who were renowned for their depiction of plants, animals and landscape, most notably his dear friend Jan Brueghel the Elder

 

 

The making of a master: Rubens at The Courtauld

 

Cain slaying Abel now hangs above an impressive fireplace in The Courtauld Gallery's Rubens and the Baroque Room, across from Rubens’ Moses and the Brazen Serpent, and opposite his oil sketch for The Descent from the Cross (now in Antwerp Cathedral).

These three paintings are pivotal examples of Rubens’ experimentation, audacity and unusual maturity in the early years of his career. With the redisplay of Cain slaying Abel, The Courtauld Gallery can now tell the story of Rubens’ return to Antwerp from Italy better than anyone else in the world.

 

Come to The Courtauld and experience the making of one of the greatest masters of Western painting.