Ground Layers in European Painting 1550–1750 CATS Proceedings, V, 2019 Edited by Anne Haack Christensen, Angela Jager and Joyce H. Townsend GROUND LAYERS IN EUROPEAN PAINTING 1550–1750 GROUND LAYERS IN EUROPEAN PAINTING 1550–1750 CATS Proceedings, V, 2019 Edited by Anne Haack Christensen, Angela Jager and Joyce H. Townsend Archetype Publications www.archetype.co.uk in association with First published 2020 by Archetype Publications Ltd in association with CATS, Copenhagen Archetype Publications Ltd c/o International Academic Projects 1 Birdcage Walk London SW1H 9JJ www.archetype.co.uk © 2020 CATS, Copenhagen The Centre for Art Technological Studies and Conservation (CATS) was made possible by a substantial donation by the Villum Foundation and the Velux Foundation, and is a collabora- tive research venture between the National Gallery of Denmark (SMK), the National Museum of Denmark (NMD) and the School of Conservation (SoC) at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation. ISBN: 978-1-909492-79-0 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers. Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher would be pleased to rectify any omissions in future reprints. Front cover illustration: Luca Giordano, The Flight into Egypt, c.1700, oil on canvas, 61.5 × 48.9 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, inv. no. 61.50 (photo: Imaging Department, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). Back cover illustrations: (top left) detail from Girolamo Troppa, Mercury Killing Argus, oil on canvas, 96 × 132 cm, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, inv. no. KMSsp122 (photo: Jakob Skou-Hansen/SMK) and (bottom left): detail of a cross-section showing the ground structure in VIS; (top right) detail from Theodoor van Loon, Holy Trinity with Mary, St John the Baptist and Angels, 1623, oil on canvas, 320 × 240 cm, Church of Saint John the Baptist at the Beguinage, Brussels (photo © KIK-IRPA); (bottom right) Carel Fabritius, Portrait of Abraham de Potter, 1649, oil on canvas, 68.5 × 57 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. SK-A-1591. Printed on acid-free paper Designed by Marcus Nichols at PDQ Digital Media Solutions Ltd. Typeset by PDQ Digital Media Solutions Ltd, Bungay Printed in the UK by Hobbs the Printers Ltd, Totton, Hampshire CONTENTS Foreword vii Troubleshooting coloured grounds: developing a methodology for studying Netherlandish ground colours 1 Moorea Hall-Aquitania and Lieve d’Hont Experiments using image processing software (Nip2) to define the colour of preparatory layers in 16th-century 10 Italian paintings Joanna Russell, Marta Melchiorre Di Crescenzo, Joseph Padfield and Marika Spring New light on the use of ash in the ground preparations of baroque paintings from Spain, North and South America 21 Silvia A. Centeno, Dorothy Mahon, Federico Carò and José Luis Lazarte Luna European art in Argentina: the ground of a painting attributed to Salvator Rosa 31 Mariana Aurora Calderón Mejía, Dolores González Pondal, Damasia Gallegos, Fernando Marte and Marcos Tascón Coloured grounds and transfer techniques in 17th-century Spanish royal portraiture: the case of Pantoja de la 34 Cruz’s portrait of Philip III at the Harvard Art Museums Cristina Morilla, Narayan Khandekar, Kate Smith and Anne Schaffer Velázquez and his choice of preparatory layers: different place, different colour? 44 Maite Jover de Celis and Maria Dolores Gayo To reach the original: technique and materials of the late 17th-century Italian painter of large-scale battle scenes, 55 Martino Altomonte Joanna Szpor, Katarzyna Górecka and Marcin Kozarzewski White, red, grey and brown: colour in Genoese grounds from the mid-16th to the 18th century 64 Michela Fasce Discovering patterns in Giralamo Troppa’s grounds 70 Loa Ludvigsen, David Buti, Anna Vila and Eva de la Fuente Pedersen Ground layers in French paintings from the second half of the 17th century: colour, stratigraphy and function 84 Claire Betelu The effect of ground colour on the appearance of two paintings by Thomas Willeboirts Bosschaert in the Oranjezaal, 93 Huis Ten Bosch Lidwien Speleers, Margriet van Eikema Hommes, Ineke Joosten, Suzan de Groot and Annelies van Loon Are the changed appearances of Carel Fabritius’ paintings a consequence of mobility? 107 Jørgen Wadum Discovering trends in Jan Steen’s grounds using principal component analysis 118 Marya Albrecht, Sabrina Meloni, Annelies van Loon, Ralph Haswell and Onno de Noord v CONTENTS The grounds of Caravaggism? Case study of Theodoor van Loon 132 Claire Toussat Preparatory layers in British paintings from the 16th to the early 18th century 140 Joyce H. Townsend and Rica Jones FOREWORD Mobility Creates Masters (MoCMa): a ground- Editors breaking international network Dr Anne Haack Christensen In 2017 CATS was awarded a grant within the framework of Paintings Conservator the Independent Research Fund Denmark. The aim of this Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK) grant was to strengthen research areas that are scattered geo- Copenhagen graphically and institutionally, and to support networks which Denmark could lead to bigger projects or larger interdisciplinary groups of researchers working across institutions. Dr Angela Jager The Mobility Creates Masters (MoCMa) research network Postdoctoral Researcher (Art History) investigated the introduction, character and impact of col- Université de Genève oured ground layers in paintings across Europe during the Geneva Early Modern period. The MoCMa meetings, launched in Switzerland collaboration with IPERION-CH, were held between 2017 and 2019. The purpose of the network was to strengthen col- Dr Joyce H. Townsend laboration between researchers from different countries and Senior Conservation Scientist research institutions, and to share knowledge, experience and Tate results. It has resulted in the sharing of data, the establish- London ment of new collaborations and research projects into the United Kingdom impact of artists’ mobility on material choices and techniques. Furthermore, the network has stressed the importance of con- tinued and indeed intensified research into the complexity of coloured ground layers in paintings from the 16th and 17th MoCMa partners centuries, and their impact on the perception of the paintings both then and especially today. • Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen The fifth international CATS conference proceedings • University of Stockholm highlights a multitude of results from the investigation of the • Nationalmuseum, Stockholm ground in early modern European painting. We hope that • Museo del Prado, Madrid this volume will provide a stimulating read on a subject about • National Gallery, London which much more will be said in the future. As with the pre- • University of Amsterdam vious four volumes in the series, this book is available as a • Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam paperback from Archetype Publications. • Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam • University of Copenhagen/Aarhus University On behalf of the organisers Prof. em. Dr Jørgen Wadum Former director of CATS vii FOREWORD Organising committee Prof. em. Dr Jørgen Wadum (CATS), Dr Anne Haack Christensen (SMK), and Sanne Bouwmeester (CATS) who expertly cared for all bookings, contacts and the conference website. Th e CATS MoCMa conference 2019, Discovering Artists’ Grounds 1550–1700, was made possible thanks to a generous grant from the Independent Research Fund Denmark, E2016 and F2017 call. TROUBLESHOOTING COLOURED GROUNDS: DEVELOPING A METHODOLOGY FOR STUDYING NETHERLANDISH GROUND COLOURS Moorea Hall-Aquitania and Lieve d’Hont ABSTRACT The ‘Down to the Ground’ project (DttG, University of Amsterdam/Delft University of Technology) attempts to build an overview and deeper understanding of the spread and use of coloured grounds in the Netherlands during the period 1550–1650. A project of this scale requires broad collaboration, the incorporation of previously collected data, and tools and protocols that allow meaningful combinations of research data on colour with techniques ranging from visual observation to chemical analysis. This paper identifies the successes and difficulties of the projects that have brought us to our current point in the study of coloured grounds and proposes a way forward in the context of DttG. Introduction Gallery, London; Noble studied the ground in portraits in the Mauritshuis, The Hague, collection in 2004; Groen’s extensive How do we describe colour in a meaningful and more objec- 2005 overview concerned Rembrandt and a few contempo- tive way? Individuals perceive colour differently, the limits of raries; and Hendriks made an inventory of grounds in the language hinder our very conception of colour, and the way we Frans Hals Museum in 2006. Miedema and Meijer’s 1979 choose to interpret and describe colour is often done unsys- work was wider in scope, but their conclusions were based on tematically, without a view of reproducibility by others. The catalogue entries and surface examination; Vandivere’s 2013 desire for quality data from paintings often stands in conflict dissertation considers Karel van Mander’s primuersel; in 2017 with practical issues, accessibility,