![]() ![]() When he described a technique, he noted failures as well as successes. He discussed a great many related topics, from preparing paint, panels, and pigments to repairing panels that had broken along the grain and paint surfaces that had suffered craquelure, or networks of fine cracks. 1ĭe Mayerne recorded instructions for making cleaning solutions and their results in two manuscripts now kept in the British Library: not formal treatises but collections of recipes, most of which he had harvested from his conversations with artists. ![]() Eventually de Mayerne found that stale brown bread could clean them-a technique still used by restorers. (His theory may not have been correct.) He followed with interest as Jerome Lanier, whose cousin had arranged the purchase, succeeded in cleaning the oil paintings, but not those done with “distemper” (water-soluble paint). When he learned that the paintings in question had been shipped with some barrels of sublimed mercury and a large quantity of fermenting currants, all seemed clear: vapor from the currants had reacted with the mercury to darken the paintings. One shipload of paintings, however, arrived “as black as ink.” The court physician to the early Stuarts, Theodore Turquet de Mayerne, collected information from painters across Europe about their materials and techniques. Charles’s purchases transported the Italian Renaissance to England, in a blaze of color and drama that still explodes across the walls of palaces. The Gonzagas’ brilliant but imprudent expenditures had landed them in financial trouble. The Gonzaga dynasty had hosted Andrea Mantegna and Giulio Romano at their court, collected antique statues, and bought new works by Raphael, Titian, Caravaggio, and Correggio. In 1627–1628 Charles I of England bought an enormous art collection from Vincenzo Gonzaga of Mantua.
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