Restoration Regulation? The Case of Murillo’s Immaculate Conception

The Botched Restoration of the Murillo's Immaculate Conception
Source: Artnet News

Today, I want to do something different and talk about an art story that is currently in the news. Several news outlets have recently reported a story about a botched attempt at art restoration in which a furniture restorer was hired by a private collector to clean a painting by the Spanish artist Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. The painting was a copy of one of Murillo’s most famous paintings, The Immaculate Conception of El Escorial.

The person tasked with the restoration was paid just thirteen hundred dollars for his work, which permanently disfigured the face of the Virgin Mary, marring her beyond recognition. (You can read about the story in more detail here.)

This scandal has led to calls for regulation of the art restoration business. Such regulation would allow art restoration to be carried out only by trained professionals. Personally, I’m in favor of this. As an art lover, the idea that a person with no experience or training could be entrusted to “clean” or “restore” priceless works of art makes my blood run cold. To me, stories like this one highlight the fact that nations around the world need to do more to protect their cultural heritage.

Fortunately, many of the great works of art are protected in world-class museums that are staffed by experts, but even this is no guarantee that paintings are safe from botched restorations. The Louvre is famous (or infamous) for taking liberties when their team recently “restored” two paintings by Leonardo da Vinci. While the art world is divided when it comes to the success of their efforts, I personally feel that the museum should have left well enough alone.

So, if the Louvre can’t be trusted to properly restore paintings, who can be?

As I said, I am in favor of the strict regulation of art restoration. However, I also think that part of protecting these great pieces of art is preserving them as they are. Restoration of art has always been controversial. When a museum or collector decides to restore a piece of art, the person they hire to do the restoration work is placed in the difficult position of deciding what to remove from the painting. While it may seem reasonable to remove layers of varnish or dirt from centuries old paintings, even this can cause potential problems, altering the patina and even removing the original paint.

So, when it comes to art restoration, I have a fairly conservative standard. I believe that art should only be restored to protect it from or repair damage or in cases in which later artists have made additions to the original painting. For example, when restoring Fra Angelico’s Annunciation, conservators at the Prado Museum found that the original shape of the angel’s wings had been altered by a later artist. They removed these later additions in keeping with Fra Angelico’s original intentions.

It’s important to remember that art restoration techniques will continue to improve over the coming decades and centuries. Just as past conservators could not have imagined the work that is being done right now, future conservators will have tools to restore and protect art that we can’t even dream of. Thus, I think the best thing to do when it comes to restoring artwork is to leave it as untouched as possible in order to preserve the works of great masters for future generations.