What Is Condition in a Work of Art?

Abstract

In 1928, Lionello Venturi studied the same picture as it hung in the National Gallery and wrote the following in a letter to The London Times: have... read criticisms, more or less openly unfavorable and and always with their point directed against its state of preservation... After careful examination of this picture, I am convinced that its condition is exceptionally good. The restorations are very restricted in their extent. They do not affect the principal parts of the picture... Old references... have been quoted which would make its condition out to be so execrable that nothing beyond the flames of the candle could really be by Titian's hand. As such a disastrous condemnation does not correspond in any way to the present facts, one of two things must have happened. Either the light of the candles dazzled the eyes of the author of this surprising statement so completely that he could not see his own error, or there really had been a complete repainting of the picture, all of which has since disappeared as the result of a good cleaning. The fact is that today not a trace remains of this fabulous repainting. 3