Major conservation treatment of a 400-year-old painting owned by Auckland Art Gallery has literally uncovered a few surprises - before (left) and after. Photo / Michael Craig
Major conservation treatment of a 400-year-old painting owned by Auckland Art Gallery has literally uncovered a few surprises - before (left) and after. Photo / Michael Craig
Cost cuts may force conservation staff at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki to return to commercial work for private clients.
Sarah Hillary, principal conservator, confirmed her team was preparing to earn its keep - but says the move would be at the expense of the gallery’s permanent collection.
“We are one of the departments that can earn revenue, although obviously that’s going to have an impact on our ability to do other work.”
Most recently, the gallery’s conservation team has been working on around 10 old masters from the permanent collection, including a large, four century old painting by Flemish artist Pieter Brueghel the Younger.
The restoration project has uncovered major surprises. Part-time conservator Genevieve Silvester, who has worked on A Village Fair over the past three years, has removed layers of varnish and historic attempts to hide the rude bits - a bare-bottomed nun, men defecating and urinating and a rutting rooster.
The scale of the Brueghel treatment was unusual for the in-house team, says Hillary, who has personally been working on a large portrait painted by Italian artist Lavinia Fontana in the 1590s.
“These works are frequently on display, so they’re not often available and if we are going to treat them, it isn’t just a quick job - it becomes a very big project.
“Because of the proposed budget cuts we’ve been asked to return to income generation again. So the likelihood of this sort of in-depth treatment happening again in a hurry is unlikely without sponsorship.”
Auckland Art Gallery’s core funding comes from Auckland Council, via Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, the council-controlled organisation (CCO) that has been asked to find savings of $44.5m in the coming financial year.
Caught with his pants down? New details uncovered during the restoration of a 400-year-old painting in Auckland Art Gallery's permanent collection. Photo / Michael Craig
While conservation staff have previously earned “quite a lot of income” for the gallery, Hillary says the team has done no commercial work since at least 2020, allowing it to concentrate on the permanent collection and assist with loans and exhibitions work.
Any return to an income-generation role model was unlikely to include treatment services, says Hillary, because of a lack of space - the conservation team is shifting to the basement while the gallery is re-roofed - and the fact that there are more private conservators working now.
“We’re thinking we might offer a technical examinations service - that is a bit of a gap in the market.
“If someone wants us to analyse the many paint layers on the rafters of a meeting house, for example . . . or if someone was interested in knowing more about their painting. We wouldn’t do authentications, but we can provide information that might be useful. We can do cross-sections, identify pigments . . .”
The newly restored A Village Fair by Pieter Brueghel the Younger is scheduled to go back on public display in October. Read more about its transformation in today’s Canvas: Bottoms up! What Auckland Art Gallery found when it cleaned a 400-year-old Brueghel
