At the Palace of Culture in Iași, the restoration of the famous paintings “Car cu ox” began. The painting was painted by Nicolae Grigorescu in 1899, in oil, on a canvas with impressive dimensions, 1510 x 2810 centimeters.
The restoration of the painting “Car cu Boi” of Nicolae Grigorescu was started: Radio Iasi
The restoration is made by the specialists from the Palace of Culture in Iași. The painting reached this institution following a transfer from the Art Museum in Bucharest, “with the disposition of the State Council for Culture and Art of December 23, 1966”, according to Agerpres.
The manager of the Palace of Culture, Andrei Assessi, states that in the inventory register it is specified that in 1966 when the painting “car cu ox” was taken, the only one with such impressive dimensions, the state of conservation was “quite good”, but in time, it began to have cracks of the painting layer and the curl.
The work was exposed to the public until 2008, when the Palace of Culture entered the process of repair.
“In the patrimony of the Palace of Culture we have the largest work in Romania, and probably in the world, made by Nicolae Grigorescu. It is an absolutely monumental work, which has not been exposed to the public for about 20 years. It will be the central piece of the Romanian Art Gallery that we wish will inaugurate at the Art Museum in the Palace of Culture on May 10”, Explained Andrei Assessi.
Due to the advanced state of degradation, the canvas was subjected to laboratory checks in 2019, and now the restorers work carefully. They try to restore the painting as close as possible to its original form.
How to restore
The restorers Loredana and Remus Ioan Popa are already at the surgery removal operation on the pictorial layer and the thinning of the vernis, which, they say, they do after they were sure of strengthening the support of the painting.
“We started to remove the grip from the pictorial layer in careful stages. We cannot clean the pictorial layer unless it is certainly caught by the preparation layer and support at the same time ”explains Loredana Popa.
The two specialists, husband and wife, intervene with tested solutions before and who needed the approval of a special commission.
“Small tests are usually done, observing in advance if the solutions we intervene do not harm the painting layer”, Explains Remus Ioan Popa.
When will the painting be restored
The specialists set out to complete the restoration of the famous painting until May.
“We intervene, after we check and finalize the surface of the pictorial layer, only where necessary, giving, that is, bringing to the level with the original pictorial layer. We cannot leave these shortcomings in the pictorial layer. It is completed at the level, after which it intervenes chromatically only in those areas in which it is needed, so that the image of the painting becomes unitary ”explained Loredana Popa.
