National Gallery Page #10

just turned it sideways and started again.

Because he, amazingly enough,

just turned it sideways and started again.

There's no priming

in between the two paintings.

There's a brown quartz, son of sandy

ground, very typical of late Rembrandt,

underneath the first composition,

but he just turned it and started right

on the other canvas, as best we can tell.

And away he went.

And it's interesting to think about that,

And away he went.

And it's interesting to think about that,

because oil paint becomes more

transparent naturally over the centuries,

slightly more transparent, and so that's

why you can often see pentimenti,

changes that were not intended to be seen.

Everyone thinks about, you know,

the horse's legs in Velzquez,

when you see three or four of them,

as he's adjusting it,

when you see three or four of them,

as he's adjusting it,

and you can see them coming through.

And there's a fair bit of that

happening in this picture.

I know the light's a little low in the evening,

but here, for example,

is the hat of the standing man.

And his face is here, so you can see

a little bit of the pink showing through.

And then some odd kind of shapes

coming through the horse's belly.

And they have to do

with the underlying composition.

And they have to do

with the underlying composition.

Now... now we're getting into interesting

problems of restoration history,

because, as I said, what you're seeing now

is a picture that's largely cleaned,

at least in the first sense

of the varnish coming off,

so you can see the kind of damages

that are very typical of a picture...

Actually, this picture's in a pretty good state

for its size and its age.

There are certain losses that, who knows

what the reasons are?

There are certain losses that, who knows

what the reasons are?

But there are other problems

with this picture

that I think result from previous restorers'

confusion about what was going on.

It's important to remember that

before the mid 19th century,

the kind of materials available to restorers

to thin or remove varnishes

was fairly limited,

they were fairly blunt instruments,

you couldn't really have

the distillation of organic solvents

you couldn't really have

the distillation of organic solvents

that you could know their reactions,

and really predict and understand

the chemistry of what was going on.

So there was often issues

with over-cleaning.

And I think what may have happened here

is that, if you think about Rembrandt

and his characteristic accents

of very thick impasto,

that create this wonderful relief,

there was a bit of that going on

from the underlying composition.

There was a bit of that going on

from the underlying composition.

And I imagine if you're cleaning

brown varnish off a brown painting,

and you suddenly start to see

some very exciting impasto,

that you know is Rembrandt,

it was quite exciting.

And we can't be absolutely certain, but,

for example, this ornament on the boot...

I think I've asked you about this

before, haven't I'?

I think I've asked you about this

before, haven't I'?

It's... it's unlike any... He's basically wearing

a kind of fancy dress hunting outfit,

you know, a typical militia kind of party gear,

with a vaguely martial idea.

And so this boot is along those lines too,

and has this odd ornament of a type

that I've never seen anywhere else.

And if you then refer back to this X-ray...

And if you then refer back to this X-ray...

Er, let's see.

The... Let's see, where am I?

Hello... There we are.

So it's this...

This thing on his boot

is actually the top of this kind of...

He's wearing a kind of tabard, jerkin,

kind of hunting, riding...

He's wearing a kind of tabard, jerkin,

kind of hunting, riding...

Funnily enough, he seems to be

in riding gear, the standing figure as well.

Maybe it's just

a son of country squire look.

But that's a detail

of his underlying costume.

Now, it could be that Rembrandt

just fortuitously thought,

"That's rather good, I'll use that."

But it does seem a little odd to me...

...because it's this perfect triangle,

it doesn't really curve,

...because it's this perfect triangle,

it doesn't really curve,

and the whole idea about this picture

is, with a very limited palette, he's...

Thank you. He's created this amazing thing

of the horse coming out on the diagonal.

Even the boot is Misting out

and coming up,

and if you think, the thing should be

probably a metre and a half higher,

you know, it's really coming down,

looking down in the way that the kind of...

Well, equestrian portraits of this type

are supposed to sort of create this

kind of grandeur and authority, if not power.

Are supposed to sort of create this

kind of grandeur and authority, if not power.

Think of the Velzquez Olivares

or something like that.

So this doesn't seem

to square with that to me.

But we'll be looking at that very closely.

I mean, we'll take a look with a microscope

and take some samples and see.

It looks to me like you can see traces of this

kind of mouse-coloured brown-grey paint,

within the impasto of the...

of the boot ornament,

within the impasto of the...

of the boot ornament,

which suggests to me

that this is an earlier, misguided cleaning.

You know, something quite different than,

say, the natural increase in transparency.

There's other evidence of very harsh

cleaning of this picture, anyway.

This kind of broken-up islands

that look a bit like sort of...

I don't know, fractals

or sort of steamy looking thing.

I don't know, fractals

or sort of steamy looking thing.

That's very typical kind of result

of undercutting

with harsh solvents or reagents.

So this picture has suffered a bit,

and I think there was much more

confusion in the lower areas,

where there is sort of

brown on brown on brown.

It's a little confusing if you're not

really aware of what's happening.

Easy...

In what sense does the work

that you do feed into the exhibition,

In what sense does the work

that you do feed into the exhibition,

beyond the fact that it made

the restoration possible?

In order

to conserve a picture,

you have to understand

the materials of which it's made,

how it's painted, what its condition is,

and, most of all,

how it's going to behave

and, most of all,

how it's going to behave

towards any proposed

conservation treatment.

What that means is that we can only

touch a picture if we can do it safely.

And one of the reasons why pictures

are investigated so carefully

for their physical and chemical state

is for the scientists at the gallery

to be able to advise restorers

is for the scientists at the gallery

to be able to advise restorers

on the kind of conservation treatment

they intend to use on the picture.

And, most of all,

so that we can guarantee

that what is done to a National Gallery

picture is absolutely safe for it.

How has our understanding

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