Benvenuto di Giavannis
One fascinating thing I love to see at the National Gallery of Art when I visit is the work they are doing to restore and maintain the beautiful art. Sunday while visiting I ran across this painting group. It was five panels framed together (you see two of them here) that was painted by Benvenuto di Giovanni, an Italian painter (1436-1517) and is a depiction of five scenes in Jesus’ life. The panel on the right is called Christ Carrying the Cross, painted in 1491. It is tempera on panel board measuring around 16″x18″. You can see how much brighter this panel is than the one on the left. The right panel has been removed and cleaned. You can clearly see the difference in the cleaned panel compared to the one that still needs cleaning. What drew me to this grouping was that one of the panels was missing and this sign was in it’s place:
It says: “Benvenuto di Giovanni’s Christ in Limbo, usually installed here, is currently in the Painting Conservation Lab for treatment. Each of the five panels in this series will be cleaned in turn.”
How cool is that?
If you want to see “Christ in Limbo”, the piece that is being cleaned, click here.
The Studio 