O início da radiografia de obras de arte em Portugal e a relação entre a radiografia, a conservação e a política

Abstract

In Portugal, the first paintings radiographs were taken in 1923, at the request of Carlos Bonvalot, contemporarily to similar initiatives occurring in other countries. It was an isolated case that would be continued only in 1928, when Roberto de Carvalho and Pedro Vitorino, also at their own expenses, started a systematic project that yielded a significant number of radiographs. According to the interpretations of these authors, together with Luis Reis Santos, some of the radiographs brought to light significant restoration and authenticity problems affecting the paintings. Between 1934 and early 1936, Carvalho and Vitorino were forbidden to make radiographs from state museums' artworks, apparently on the pretext that X-rays might damage the paintings. However, around this date, the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga (National Fine Art Museum) acquired radiographic equipment, in an identically pioneering process involving the curator Joao Couto and the physicist Manuel Valadares. Considering the chronological coincidence of these two initiatives and the totalitarian social-cultural governmental atmosphere of the Estado Novo regime in Portugal, this apparently contradictory situation is interpreted as a form of avoiding the inconvenient situation created by the strong criticism arising from radiographs' interpretations and controlling the future occurrence of alike problems.