Milan, starting today, Bramante's Christ is back on view at the Brera Art Gallery

The restoration of Christ at the Column, the painting by Donato Bramante (Fermignano, 1444 - Rome, 1514) a Renaissance masterpiece and symbol of the Brera Art Gallery in Milan, where it is usually displayed in room XXIV along with Piero della Francesca ’s Montefeltro Altarpiece and Raphael’s Marriage of the Virgin, is over. Bramante’s work, long kept in the Abbey of Chiaravalle, just outside Milan, was removed from there in 1915 and moved to Brera because of its precarious conservation conditions: it is in fact a very fragile work, in need of continuous monitoring (already a few years after being removed from the Abbey of Chiaravalle it underwent interventions). Restoration was therefore necessary, also in light of the suffering the work suffered in January of this year during the very cold days in Milan, which resulted in some lifting of the pictorial surface.

The restoration was promptly carried out in the “open” workshop, the one inside Room XVIII, with the windows allowing the public to see what is going on inside. The intervention, preceded, as is standard practice, by a careful documentation campaign and a thorough diagnostic phase (with ultraviolet fluorescence filming, infrared reflectography, infrared false color and radiography) included the consolidation of the lifts, the reintegration of the gaps and the application of a protective varnish. As of today, June 1, 2017, the work is again visible in Room XXIV.

“Without conservation, there can be no enhancement,” said James Bradburne, director of the Pinacoteca di Brera, who added, “Conservation is at the center of our world, conservation is an activity that the Pinacoteca di Brera carries out every day. That is why I am very happy to see Christ at the Column by Donato Bramante back in its place after five months of work. It was restored by Brera’s in-house team, which intervened on the work with great speed and expertise. This represents an exceptional example, a model of what we mean by protection and enhancement.”

Image: Donato Bramante, Christ at the Column (c. 1489-1490; oil on panel, 93 x 62 cm; Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera)

Milan, starting today, Bramante's Christ is back on view at the Brera Art Gallery

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