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Three works on paper by Vincent Van Gogh: technical study, display considerations and a conjectural colour reconstruction

2023; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 46; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/19455224.2022.2161097

1945-5232

Joyce H. Townsend, Rosie Freemantle,

Conservation Techniques and Studies

AbstractPrior to an exhibition, one gouache (The Oise at Auvers 1890) and two drawings (Thatched Roofs 1884 and A Corner of the Garden of St Paul’s Hospital at St Rémy 1889) by Vincent van Gogh in the Tate collection were available for technical examination for the first time. Obvious colour changes in the papers and loss of colour in the inks and in pink/red pigments where display mounts have protected the edges prompted materials analysis, microfading and an investigation of their history. The decisions made for their display are discussed in the context of Tate’s lighting policy, currently being reviewed to cover all types of material in a growing collection of modern materials, and changing attitudes to the display or not of preserved colour beneath earlier mounts and frames. The materials van Gogh used were very typical of his known choices at the dates of making. The use of two formulations with geranium lakes based on Eosin Y, both sensitive to light, were identified in a gouache by this artist for the first time.Résumé« Trois œuvres sur papier de Vincent Van Gogh: étude technique, considérations pour leur exposition et hypothèse de restitution des couleurs »Avant leur exposition, une gouache (L'Oise à Auvers, 1890) et deux dessins (Toits de chaume, 1884 et Un coin du jardin de l'hôpital St Paul à St Rémy, 1889) de Vincent van Gogh dans la collection de la Tate ont été mis à disposition pour la première fois pour un examen technique. Des changements de couleur évidents dans les papiers et une perte de couleur dans les encres et dans les pigments roses/rouges, alors que les cartons de montage ont protégé les bords, ont motivé l'analyse des matériaux, le microfading et une enquête sur leur histoire. Les décisions prises pour leur exposition sont évoquées dans le contexte de la politique d'éclairage de la Tate, actuellement en cours de révision pour couvrir tous les types de matériaux dans une collection croissante de matériaux modernes, et l'évolution des attitudes vis-à-vis de l’exposition ou non de la couleur préservée sous les supports et cadres antérieurs. Les matériaux utilisés par van Gogh étaient très typiques de ses choix connus aux dates de fabrication. L'utilisation de deux mélanges avec des laques de géranium à base d'Eosine Y, toutes deux sensibles à la lumière, ont été identifiées dans une gouache par cet artiste pour la première fois.Zusammenfassung„Drei Arbeiten auf Papier von Vincent Van Gogh: Technische Studie, Überlegungen zur Darstellung und eine mutmaßliche Farbrekonstruktion“Vor einer Ausstellung wurden eine Gouache (Die Oise bei Auvers 1890) und zwei Zeichnungen (Strohdächer 1884 und Eine Ecke des Gartens des St.-Paul-Hospitals in St. Rémy 1889) von Vincent van Gogh aus der Tate Sammlung zum ersten Mal technisch untersucht. Offensichtliche Farbveränderungen in den Papieren und Farbverluste in den Tinten und in den rosa/roten Pigmenten, die von Passepartouts über den Rändern geschützt worden waren, gaben den Anlass für eine Materialanalyse, ein Mikrofading und eine Untersuchung der Geschichte der Bilder. Die Entscheidungen, die für ihre Ausstellung getroffen wurden, werden im Zusammenhang mit der Beleuchtungspolitik der Tate erörtert. Diese wird derzeit überarbeitet, um alle Arten von Materialien in einer wachsenden Sammlung moderner Materialien zu erfassen, zusammen mit den sich ändernden Konzepte zur Darstellung oder Nichtdarstellung von erhaltener Farbe unter früheren Passepartouts und Rahmen. Die hier von van Gogh verwendeten Materialien waren sehr typisch für seine bekannte Materialauswahl zum Zeitpunkt der Entstehung. Die Verwendung zweier lichtempfindlicher Farbrezepturen mit Geraniumlack auf der Basis von Eosin Y wurden zum ersten Mal in einer Gouache des Künstlers nachgewiesen.Resumen“Tres obras sobre papel de Vincent Van Gogh: estudio técnico, consideraciones de visualización y una reconstrucción del cromática conjetural”Un gouache (El Oise en Auvers 1890) y dos dibujos (Techos de paja 1884 y Un rincón del jardín del hospital de St Paul en St Rémy 1889) de Vincent van Gogh de la colección de la Tate estuvieron disponibles por primera vez para un examen técnico antes de una exposición. Los evidentes cambios de color en los papeles y la pérdida de color en las tintas y en los pigmentos rosados/rojos en los lugares donde los montajes habían protegido los bordes, impulsó el análisis de los materiales, micro decoloración y el estudio de su historia. Las decisiones tomadas para su exposición se analizan en el contexto de la política de iluminación de la Tate, que actualmente se está revisando para abarcar todo tipo de materiales en una colección cada vez con más materiales modernos, y de las actitudes cambiantes respecto a la exposición o no del color conservado bajo soportes y marcos anteriores. Los materiales que usó Van Gogh eran muy típicos de sus elecciones conocidas en estas fechas de fabricación. El uso de dos formulaciones con lacas de geranio a base de Eosina Y, ambas sensibles a la luz, fueron identificadas en un gouache de este artista por primera vez.摘要“文森特·梵高的三件纸质作品：技术研究、展示考量和推测的色彩再现”在一次展览前，泰特收藏的文森特·梵高的一张水粉画（1890年《奥维尔的瓦兹河》）和两幅素描（1884年《茅草屋》和1889年《圣雷米的圣保罗医院花园一角》）首次接受了技术检查。在被展示框保护的边缘处，明显的纸张变色、墨水和粉/红色颜料褪色的情况，促使作者做了材料分析、微褪色检测，以及历史调查。关于对这些作品的展示决定是在泰特的照明政策背景下讨论的，目前政策正在被审阅，以涵盖不断增长的现代材料收藏的所有类型，并改变了关于是否展示在早期装裱和画框下被保留色彩的态度。梵高所用的材料是在其创作时期的典型选择。人们在这位艺术家的水粉画中首次发现了两种配方的使用，即基于伊红（Eosin Y）的天竺葵红（geranium lakes），而它们都对光敏感。Keywords: Van Goghgeranium lakeEosin Ymicrofading works on paperlighting policydisplaying altered artworks AcknowledgementsJoe Humphrys, Tate photographer, produced the conjectural digital reconstructions, as well as taking the technical images reproduced here. Betty Sacher, then a Tate preventive conservator, carried out some of the microfading tests, and Dr Judith Lee, Tate conservation scientist, carried out the FTIR transmission spectroscopy. Art Ness Proãno Gaibor, Dr Ineke Joosten, Birgit Reissland and Drs Muriel Geldof, all at the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE), Amsterdam, identified a second candidate area for faded eosin lake, and Dr Proãno Gaibor carried out UHPLC-PDA-HRMS of the two samples and provided a detailed technical report. Dr Alex Ball and Innes Clatworthy at the Natural History Museum Electron Microscope Unit, London, facilitated remote access for SEM-EDX. Teio Meedendorp from the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, shared his expertise and made helpful comments on an early draft of the paper, while Jacqueline Moon, Tate Conservation Manager for Paper and Photographs, Dr Bronwyn Ormsby, Tate Principal Conservation Scientist, and Louise Lawson, Tate Head of Conservation, reviewed the final text. Dr Carol Jacobi, Tate Curator of British Art 1850–1915, gave support and encouragement. Charoulla Salt, then a Tate paper conservation technician, mounted and framed the works in preparation for the exhibition.BiographiesJoyce Townsend ACR FIIC is Senior Conservation Scientist at Tate. For over 30 years she has worked on the identification and deterioration of artists’ materials and the interpretation of artists’ techniques in oil and watercolour, with a focus on British art from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries and early twentieth-century international art, and for which she has published many studies. She is Director of Publications for the International Institute of Conservation (IIC) and honorary professor in the School of Culture and Creative Arts, Glasgow University.Rosie Freemantle MA(Cons) ACR worked at Tate for over 20 years, most recently as Paper Conservator for Displays and Exhibitions at Tate Britain. She is currently in private practice in Cambridgeshire in the UK and works as a freelance conservator for museums and galleries in London and Cambridge.Notes1 Carol Jacobi and Chris Stephens, Van Gogh in Britain (London: Tate, 2019). The exhibition ran from 27 March to 11 August 2019 at Tate Britain.2 Art Ness Proãno Gaibor et al., The Oise at Auvers (1890) Red Pigment Analysis of a Gouache by Vincent van Gogh—RCE Research Report No. 2019-155 (Amsterdam: Ministry of OCW, Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands, Cultural Heritage Laboratory, 2020).3 Vincent L. Beltran et al., Microfading Tester: Light Sensitivity Assessment and Role in Lighting Policy (Los Angeles: Getty Conservation Institute, 2021), 26.4 See, for example, The Kingfisher 1884 (Van Gogh Museum F1135) 402×542mm. Thatched Roofs is smaller and is not signed or titled as are The Kingfisher and some others from this period.5 Van Gogh letter 441 to Anthon van Rappard between 21 and 28 March 1884, in Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten, and Nienke Bakker, eds, Vincent Van Gogh: The Letters. The Complete and Annotated Edition (6 vols, London and Amsterdam, 2009), https://vangoghletters.org/vg/ (accessed 29 November 2022).6 Quotation from Tate record 4/4/147/1, Tate Public Records: Tate Collections: Bequests: Frank C. Stoop.7 Tate conservation record for N04715.8 Liesbeth Heenk states that ‘the range of papers … differed from period to period. It was governed by the availability from local suppliers, his choice of drawing media and the intended public use of the drawings’. Liesbeth Heenk, ‘Revealing Van Gogh: An Examination of his Papers’, The Paper Conservator 18 (1994): 30–9.9 Tate conservation record for N04715.10 Cf. Teio Meedendorp, ‘Observations on Several of Van Gogh’s Drawing Materials’, in Van Gogh’s Studio Practice, ed. Marije Vellekoop et al. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 390–3. Meedendorp states that Van Gogh used carpenters’ pencils and also ‘foresters’ pencils’.11 Johan Gerrit Neevel discusses the analysis of 73 pen and ink drawings (1878–1890) and 28 letters (1878–1888). Johan Gerrit Neevel, ‘The Identification of Van Gogh’s Inks for Drawing and Writing’, in Vellekoop et al., Studio Practice, 420–35, 430 and 432.12 Ella Hendriks and Muriel Geldof, ‘Van Gogh’s Working Practice: A Technical Study’, in Vincent van Gogh, Paintings 2: Antwerp and Paris 1885–1888, ed. Ella Hendriks and Louis van Tilburgh (Amsterdam and Zwolle: Van Gogh Museum, 2011), 142.13 Hendriks and Geldof, ‘Van Gogh’s Working Practice’, 142.14 Jacob Baart de la Faille, L’Oeuvre de van Gogh (Paris and Brussels: G. van Oest, 1928). A Corner of the Garden … St Rémy was catalogued as F1242, but not illustrated in this non-paginated book.15 Perhaps 1930, as noted later for The Oise at Auvers.16 Tate record 4/4/147/1.17 Tate record PC4.2 van Gogh A20750, Tate Public Records: Tate Collections: Bequests: Frank C. Stoop.18 Van Gogh preferred course-grained to smooth papers, cf. Meedendorp, ‘Observations on Several of Van Gogh’s Drawing Materials’, 395.19 Email correspondence between Rosie Freemantle and Teio Meedendorp, 9 July 2021.20 Cf. Teio Meedendorp, ‘Hand to Hand Combat: Observations on Several of Van Gogh’s Drawing Materials’, in Vellekoop et al., Studio Practice, 395–9.21 Cf. Fabienne Ruppen, ‘Mapping Cézanne. Drawings and Watercolours on Paper from Emile Desloye’ (paper presented at Les filigranes, une marque à explorer (2018) et Histoire du papier et de la papeterie—Actualités de la recherche (2019), HICSA (Histoire culturelle et sociale des arts) Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art, Paris, 2020), https://hicsa.univ-paris1.fr/documents/pdf/PublicationsLigne/Actes%20Laroque%202020/11_RUPPEN.pdf (accessed 3 December 2022).22 Marije Vellekoop states ‘he had already demonstrated his talent for pen and ink drawing and the reed pen proved an excellent aid in finding his own, distinctive drawing style’. Marije Vellekoop, ‘Van Gogh finds a style of his own’, in Marije Vellekoop, Nienke Bakker, Maite van Dijk, and Muriel Geldof (eds), Van Gogh at Work, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 156.23 Neevel, ‘The Identification of Van Gogh’s Inks’, 425 and 430. Here only chrome logwood and iron-chrome logwood inks were identified in the St Rémy drawings and letters analysed.24 Jansen, Luijten, and Bakker, Vincent Van Gogh: The Letters, no. 886.25 Tate record PC4.2.26 de la Faille, L’Oeuvre de van Gogh, F1639.27 Apollo X (1929): 132. All Apollo illustrations were reproduced in very high contrast, black and white, continuous tone.28 There is a label attesting to the loan in Tate conservation record N04714.29 Tate record PC4.2.30 Douglas Cooper, Drawings and Watercolours by Vincent van Gogh (New York: MacMillan, 1955), 88. The colour reproduction is not accurate.31 Emile Desloye & Cie showed their products at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889 where it was stated that they made ‘printing papers, watermarked papers … white and coloured papers … and Ingres drawing papers which are appreciated not only in France but also internationally’. Ruppen, ‘Mapping Cézanne’, 220–1.32 Van Gogh had brought a sketchbook and a small selection of loose paper sheets with him from Paris. This is the only known order for paper he made during his time in France. Vellekoop, ‘Van Gogh Finds a Style of His Own’, 214.33 The ED & Cie watermarked paper was used by van Gogh as early as in 1881. Meedendorp, ‘Hand to Hand Combat’, 396. Email correspondence between Rosie Freemantle and Teio Meedendorp, 12 July 2021. Meedendorp confirmed that pink-toned drawing paper is usual for van Gogh.34 Vellekoop, ‘Van Gogh Finds a Style of his Own, 21.35 Tate conservation record for N04714.36 Neevel states that van Gogh used carbon, iron gall and chrome logwood inks at this time. This ink was not analysed. Neevel, ‘The Identification of Van Gogh’s Inks’, 430.37 Gillian Osmond, ‘Zinc Soaps: An Overview of Zinc Oxide Reactivity and Consequences of Soap Formation in Oil-Based Paintings’, in Metal Soaps in Art, ed. Francesca Casadio et al. (Cham: Springer, 2019), 25–46.38 See for example, Old Vineyard with Peasant Woman 1890, pencil, brush, oil paint and watercolour on paper, Van Gogh Museum F1624.39 Hendriks and Geldof, ‘Van Gogh’s Working Practice’, 91–143.40 Cf. Proãno Gaibor et al., The Oise at Auvers (1890) Red Pigment Analysis.41 Geldof et al., ‘Van Gogh’s Geranium Lake’, in Vellekoop et al., Studio Practice, 268–88.42 Orthochromatic film was insensitive to red, whereas panchromatic film was sensitive to the whole visible spectrum; see Bertrand Lavédrine, Photographs of the Past: Process and Preservation (Los Angeles: Getty Conservation Institute, English translation, 2009), 246. Panchromatic film was invented at the beginning of the twentieth century and its use increased over ensuing decades. Fine art photography would have given more realistic images if the more expensive panchromatic film were used.43 Tate record PC4.2.44 Tate record PC4.2.45 Victoria Todd et al., eds, Appearance, Opinion, Change: Evaluating the Look of Paintings (London: UKIC, 1991).46 Cf. for example, Jonathan W. Martin, Joannie W. Chin, and Tinh Nguyen, ‘Reciprocity Law Experiments in Polymeric Photodegradation: A Critical Review’, Progress in Organic Coatings 47, nos 3–4 (2003): 292–311.47 Cf. for example, Muriel Geldof et al., ‘Reconstructing Van Gogh’s Palette to Determine the Optical Characteristics of His Paints’, Heritage Science 6 (2018): article no. 17; Shuting Liao et al., ‘The Geometry of Colors in van Gogh’s Sunflowers’, Heritage Science 9 (2021): article no. 136.48 Van Gogh at Work, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, May 2013 to January 2014. The exhibition displayed versions of the painting The Bedroom alongside a digital reconstruction revealing the original palette of mauve walls and red floor. This is now illustrated on the museum website at: https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/about/knowledge-and-research/completed-research-projects/revigo (accessed 10 December 2022).49 Tate conservation records N04714, N04715, N04716.50 Ella Hendriks, Agnes W. Brokerhof, and Kees van den Meiracker, ‘Valuing Van Gogh’s Colours: From the Past to the Future’, in ICOM-CC 18th Triennial Conference Preprints Copenhagen, ed. Janet Bridgland (Paris: International Council of Museums, 2017), art. 1306, https://www.icom-cc-publications-online.org/1574/Valuing-Van-Goghs-colours–From-the-past-to-the-future (accessed 10 December 2022).51 David Saunders, ‘Lighting Policy and Practice’, in Museum Lighting: A Guide for Conservators and Curators (Los Angeles: Getty Conservation Institute, 2020), 270–301.52 Saunders, Museum Lighting, 281, Fig. 10.4.53 Proãno Gaibor et al., The Oise at Auvers (1890) Red Pigment Analysis.54 Cf. Aviva Burnstock et al., ‘Comparison of the Fading and Surface Deterioration of Red Lake Pigments in Six Paintings by Vincent Van Gogh with Artificially Aged Paint Reconstructions’, in ICOM-CC Triennial Meeting The Hague Postprints, ed. Janet Bridgland (London: James and James, 2005), 459–65, see 459 and 465. Van Gogh wrote at length to Theo on his concerns about the stability of colours, including the tendency of the lakes to fade.55 Geldof et al., ‘Van Gogh’s Geranium Lake’, 268–88.56 Burnstock et al., ‘Comparison of the Fading and Surface Deterioration of Red Lake’, 464–5.57 Cf. Geldof, ‘Van Gogh’s Geranium Lake’, 268–88. For examples of the fading of van Gogh’s geranium lakes in oil media, see, for example, Silvia A. Centeno et al., ‘Van Gogh’s Irises and Roses: The Contribution of Chemical Analyses and Imaging to the Assessment of Color Changes in the Red Lake Pigments’, Heritage Science 5 (2017): article no. 18, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-017-0131-8 (accessed 11 December 2022); Ella Hendriks and Louis van Tilborgh, ‘Van Gogh’s Garden of the Asylum: Genuine or Fake?’, The Burlington Magazine 143, no. 1176 (2001): 145–56.58 Email correspondence regarding the lie of the land at Auvers between Rosie Freemantle and Teio Meedendorp, 9 July 2021.59 Cooper, Drawings and Watercolours by Vincent van Gogh, 87.