Conserving Knole's Six Raphael Cartoons

What we have here at Knoll is a set of six cartoon copies, which have been together since they were first painted, which makes it a really spectacular and unusual collection of paintings. It's been over 300 years since they've had any major conservation treatment. And sadly, their condition is quite clear. If we begin by just thinking of the varnish, that's the layer that's put on top of the paint to give it a sense of depth and also to protect it. Well, here, the varnish layer is deteriorated. Just look at this section here where it's opaque. We know that there's an inscription at the base of where he's sitting, but we can't see it clearly because the varnish has so deteriorated. So this is what we're aiming for during the conservation, to take it back to that level where we can see the depth and quality of this painting. Well, we know that this painting is too large to make an exit out of the doorways of the cartoon gallery. So the only way of transporting it from Knoll to our studio is to roll it onto a large cylinder. But before we can do that, we have to secure the paint because these are very unstable. They're 17th century. When we get this painting back to the studio, we will be removing the old lining and then relining the painting with a more effective support, primarily because, as you can see here, the bond between this old lining canvas and the original painting is now so weak that it can be removed fairly easily. One of the main methods that we're using in this project is cross-section analysis, which involves taking a tiny fragment of paint, mounting it in a special way, and then looking at it under a microscope at high resolution. The most striking outcome of the cleaning is the fact that the painting displays these very, very strong palette of colors. I think what's really been the most challenging aspect of this project is just the sheer size. We have six large paintings, and we want to be able to see all six at one time. So we're very lucky that we're actually in a chapel that gives us the space to see them. At this particular point in time, we've just completed the full cleaning of the painting. I use here the dry ground colors, and those are mixed with a varnish resin medium. The important thing about using this sort of medium rather than Neue paint is the fact that it is readily reversible. It's a year later, and the paintings have come home to Knoll. We're here in the cartoon gallery. But look at them now. I mean, they're absolutely fantastic. We can see the colors. We can see detail in the figures. And it's all just so exciting to see them back here.