ENEIAS - The collection of painting at the Portugal National Library: from the saving of conventual artistic heritage during the Liberal Revolution to an integrated study of conservation and dissemination
Project financed by FCT - Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology in the frame of the Call for Funding of R&D Projects in all Scientific Domains 2009 - PTDC/HIS-HEC/113226/2009
[ARTIS-IHA - Main Research Unit]
Description:
The image of the Trojan warrior, Aeneas, who after the destruction of Troy decides, with the help of the gods, to found a new city, provides us with a metaphor for the measures taken by Pedro IV (1798-1834), regent of the kingdom during the minority of his daughter, Maria II (1819-1853), in safeguarding a valuable repository of cultural and artistic heritage which, otherwise, would have been irretrievably lost after the dissolution of religious orders in 1834.
Mention has been made of the pioneering role played by the Prince Consort Fernando II (1816-1885), from 1836 onwards, in the safeguarding of monuments and their artistic wealth. Nothing, however, is known of the activity of Pedro IV and of the Public Library (BP) - then located at Lisbon?s Convent of São Francisco -, in the period before the founding of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (1836), in the receiving and protection of a vast group of works from the abolished convents.
The paintings that came to the BP, in general, were later dispersed by numerous public buildings, churches and museums around the country. Today exist on the BP (now the National Library of Portugal - BNP) about fifty paintings, mainly portraits executed between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, which are hung in rooms and along corridors, far from the eyes of the public and simultaneously protected of recent conservation and restoration interventions. This project aims to study the action of heritage protection exercised by BP, and the route that these paintings were until the beginning of the twentieth century in the context of the policies and practices for the protection and conservation of heritage in Portugal.
To this end, the research will be oriented along two complementary lines of action. On the one hand, there shall be exploit the BNP?s precious and unpublished documental archive. Given the content of the documentation, we will enrich our knowledge of the origin, cataloguing criteria, and the conservation and restoration of these paintings. This study will also provide us with essential information on the overall functioning of the safeguarding in operation at the time, with a general record of the origins and later destinations of the works which came to the Public Library. Through this information Portuguese art historians will have a much clearer idea of the origins of many works today displayed in parish churches, public buildings and museums around the country.
In addition, a material study of the BNP?s paintings will be done, particularly those that appear to have been little intervention stock during the 20yh century, with a view to understand the restoration works undertook in the 19th century and to determinate the consequences of the process that began with the entrance of the paintings into the BP. This material study will be carried out by the laboratory study of the works. Instead of the usual material characterization of the original paintings, as usual, this laboratory work on some of the paintings will consist of the detailed reconstitution of the restoration work carried: reconstructing the procedures followed, the materials used and the underlying restoration principles. It will be essential to confront and complement the results coming from physical and chemical methods of examination and analysis with the information obtained through documental research, in order to compare theory with practice.
This study, based on both analytical and documental components, have an interest that goes beyond the works of the BNP. The documentation, which is exceptionally rich in information on the issues of protection and wealth management, contribute to the knowledge of the history of painting restoration in Portugal over a period about which very little is known. At the same time, some of these old paintings seem to have relatively untouched by recent restoration works, which presents a rare opportunity to characterize the 19th and ?early 20th century restoration processes, often aggressive, that not only significantly changed the visible image of the work, as it had an impact on the degradation processes that however occurred.
A study of this nature is harder to do with works displayed in museums, subject to regular operations, maintenance and renovation that will erasing the marks of earlier interventions. Thus, this study will contribute decisively to the knowledge of the history of conservation and restoration of paintings in Portugal during the 19th and early 20th century, by the articulation of the historic and documentary survey with the laboratory studies.
The name of the project, Aeneas, works metaphorically to refer the remarkable action of Pedro IV and of the BP on safeguarding a collection of paintings consisting of thousands of pieces, but also to highlight a study that intend to characterize the restoration works, which, like others, always aim to give new life to works of art.
Funding:
FCT - Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology
Overall Budget:
67.788,00 Euros
ARTIS-IHA Budget:
32.844,00 euros
Reference:
PTDC/HIS-HEC/113226/2009
Start date: 01-01-2011
End date: 30-06-2014
Main Research Unit:
ARTIS - Instituto de História da Arte, Faculdade de Letras da Universidade
Proposing Institution:
Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa
Participating Institutions:
Instituto Politécnico de Tomar (IPT)
Responsible Researcher:
Clara Moura Soares
Research Team:
Vitor Manuel Guimarães Verissimo Serrão
António João Carvalho Cruz
Maria João Quintas Lopes Baptista Neto
Maria Madalena Gonçalves da Costa Lima
Carla Maria da Piedade Calado Rodrigues do Rêgo
Maria Pilar Bustinduy Fernandez
More information:
FCT projects database [+]
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