Restaurarea unei picturi pe pânză de Aurél Náray (1883–1948)

Abstract

"The restoration of a painted canvas by Aurél Náray (1883-1948) This study shows the restoration work made on the painted canvas of the Hungarian artist Aurél Náray (1883-1948), depicting an ecclesiastic subject (Saint Joseph with the infant Jesus). This oil painting comes from a private art collector and has the following dimensions: 42x57.5 cm, being sustained by a wooden stretcher. The painting is signed and dated by the artist himself on the lower left corner (“Aurél Náray 909”). The canvas is fixed on the underframe with metallic nails; as a result of the wood having dried, the frame shows slight distortions. The face of the painting displays small portions of missing white primer and/ or colour, erosions of the paint layer, two little punctures in the canvas, and a small area of distorted canvas placed toward the lower edge of the painting. Adherence of thin dirt can be observed on the surface of the painting while the back of the canvas bears heavy traces of dust and dirt, especially on its margins. The actual restoration process of the painted canvas referred to the following: drawing up the initial photograhic documentation, superficial dust cleaning on the back of the canvas, detachment of the painting from its old underframe and the building of a new and proper wooden stretcher. After the plainness of the painting was restored and the two small pricked points on the canvas were consolidated (with the use of Beva 371 adhesive), a strip lining on the margins of the canvas was carried out, in order to be able to fix the canvas on the new underframe. Cleaning of the surface came next, followed by the filling of the missing primer layer with putty. The chromatic integration of the painting was accomplished (after having sealed the original paint with a thin layer of intermediary varnish) with the use of low oil content colours and the final protection of a second satin varnish layer. Keywords: painted canvas, restoration, stretcher, strip lining, varnish "