User:Ruskinmonkey/Transfer of frescoes

'''Transfer of frescoes...

According to Lanzi, the transfer of wall paintings to canvas was first performed by Antonio Contri (c.1660-1732). He stuck a pece of canvas to the fresco with glue or bitumen, and when it was dry, beat the wall carefully with a mallet, cut the plaster round it, and fixed a wooden frame to the plaster. After a few days he carefully removed the framed canvas, bringing the painted surface with it. It was laid on a table and a new canvas was fixed to the exposed plaster surface with  a stronger glue. The first canvas was then removed, and the picture could be hung.

The practice was revived in the early nineteenth century by Palmaroli, In 1811 he transferred the fresco of the Descent from the Cross by Danielle da Volterra,

In 183* several frescos from the demolished Soranza Palace were exhibited in a gallery in Maddox Street London. They had been transferred by Philip Balbi in 1817. The process he used was to fix a canvas to the surface of the fresco with a weak paste, composed of beer and water and detatch a thin layer of painted plaster, adherering to the canvas, which "may then be rolled up, exactly like an oil picture". To make the picture ready for display, a second canvas was stretched over the back of the plaster, and fixed to it with a stronger glue or paste, and the first canvas removed with an application of warm water.

A slightly more complex procedure is described in an account of the removal of some frescoes by Gambara at the convent at St Eufemia in Brescia in 1829, carried out by Ludwig Gruner "with the assistance of some expert Italians" The fresco was covered with a strong glue, and a piece of fine calico stuck to it. The calico was rivetted to any irregularities in the wall, and was in turn covered in glue. A piece of canvas was stuck to the calico, Heat was applied, causing "the glue even on the fresco to sweat through the cloths, and incoporate the whole". Another layer of cloth was glued on, and after a few days the edges of the layered cloths were trimmed, and peeled off, the thin painted layer of fresco adhering to the canvas