RENAISSANCE IN FOCUS

Together they recognize more – conservators, art historians and natural scientists elicit surprising new insights from works of Venetian Renaissance painting. In a current project, a team from the Alte Pinakothek and the Doerner Institute in Munich is examining and cataloging the corresponding holdings of the Bavarian State Painting Collections. In doing so, they are demonstrating how the interdisciplinary combination of methods can bring to light what was previously hidden and shed new light on what was previously known.

The elderly gentleman with silver hair sits in his armchair, wrapped in a coat trimmed with lynx fur. He hands a sheet of paper to a nobly dressed middle-aged man standing to his right. The younger man places his hand protectively on the shoulder of a four-year-old boy wearing a lace-trimmed silver brocade robe. The boy is holding a flower and a white handkerchief in his hands. While the old man’s gaze wanders into the distance, the boy looks directly at the viewer.
To this extent, the painting reflects the self-image of a well-to-do middle-class family – with all its grandeur, a typical representative portrait of the Venetian Renaissance. However, a section of the painting’s background architecture that deviates from the original in terms of painting technique attracted the attention of conservator Anneliese Földes. She is part of an interdisciplinary team of scientists who have been conducting extensive research into works of Venetian Renaissance art in the holdings of the Bavarian State Painting Collections since 2021. Art historians, conservators and natural scientists are jointly examining around 210 works from the 15th and 16th centuries, including around 60 permanent loans and exhibits on display in the state galleries throughout Bavaria. The results of the research, which will continue for several years, will be made available in a comprehensive book publication and subsequently also digitally.

One of the works that the staff of the Bavarian State Painting Collections have already examined is the aforementioned portrait of three Venetians. Elector Karl Theodor von der Pfalz acquired the painting, which was wrongly titled “Self-Portrait of the Painter Tintoretto with his Son before the Doge of Venice”, in 1793. From the middle of the 20th century, the painting was kept in the depot of the Alte Pinakothek and listed as an “anonymous family portrait” in a catalog from 1971.
Only the combination of restoration and technical methods as well as art historical research and archive research revealed a story of infidelity, adventure, reconciliation and a bitter inheritance dispute that no one had previously suspected.
Using imaging techniques – X-rays, infrared reflectography and macro X-ray fluorescence scanning – the restorers were able to gain an insight into the paint layer. And they were in for a surprise, as the analysis revealed an inscription written in black paint on a gray wall that had later been painted over. It was a Latin inscription, which initially raised questions. Research in Venetian genealogies revealed that the abbreviations used in the inscription referred to the youngest member of the Maggi family. According to this, the boy on the right of the portrait is called Antonio.

The man at his side was Carlo Maggi. The Venetian saw himself as an adventurer who turned down the career as a civil servant that was intended for him. Carlo’s travels took him as far as the eastern Levant, where he was accepted into the Order of the Holy Sepulchre during an expedition to Jerusalem. During the turmoil of the Venetian-Ottoman war, he was taken prisoner and held as a slave. Christian merchants finally bought Carlo free on the slave market.
Back in Venice, his father welcomed his prodigal son with open arms. In the meantime, Carlo’s wife had given birth to a child at home in Venice. Although Carlo was not Antonio’s biological father, he accepted him as his stepson and even made him his sole heir – much to the displeasure of the rest of the family.
In 1578, Carlo commissioned an illuminated manuscript, which Johanna Pawis, art historian working on the project, describes as a “hero’s journey between distress at sea and sightseeing”¹. The last illustration of the manuscript, which is now kept in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, shows Carlo facing his father. While he places his hand protectively on Antonio’s shoulder, the older sisters and brothers clearly distance themselves. “You thought ill of me, but God turned this into good,” reads a banner in Latin. In his will, preserved in the Venetian state archives, in which Carlo names Antonio as his sole heir, he also portrays his siblings as envious. He is obviously justifying his decision to recognize Antonio as his successor and pass over the rest of the family. The manuscript and the Munich portrait therefore stand for a strategy of legitimization qua representation. The interdisciplinary team’s research also revealed who Carlo Maggi commissioned the portrait from around 1575: Jacopo Tintoretto, whose workshop was located in the immediate vicinity of Carlo Maggi’s residence.

“The special thing about our approach is the close interdisciplinary cooperation that we maintain in our day-to-day research. Experts from art history, conservation and the natural sciences meet regularly in the workflow of the project, directly in front of the artworks, to discuss current results and hypotheses as well as open questions. We are convinced that the best possible research results can only be achieved through this direct exchange of different professional perspectives, on an equal footing and with maximum mutual openness,” summarizes Eva Ortner, Director of the Doerner Institute of the Bavarian State Painting Collections.
The research project led by Andreas Schumacher, Collection Director of the Alte Pinakothek and Head of the Collection of Italian Painting of the 14th – 18th Centuries, together with Eva Ortner, brings together the disciplines of art history, art technology and restoration as well as the scientific study of paintings. In addition to art historians Annette Kranz and Johanna Pawis, the team also includes conservators Ronja Emmerich, Anneliese Földes and Jan Schmidt as well as Heike Stege, Patrick Dietemann, Jens Wagner, Andrea Obermeier, Ursula Baumer and Carola Komar from the Doerner Institute’s natural sciences department. “A project of this magnitude would not be possible without sponsors, as we don’t have the necessary resources in terms of personnel or funding. Even though the comprehensive cataloging of the collection is one of the museum’s core tasks, the generous funding from the German Research Foundation, the Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation and the Hubert Burda Foundation is what makes this project possible in the first place. Their support is invaluable to us,” emphasizes Ortner.

“Given the potential for unexpected discoveries to emerge when artworks are examined with modern technology for the first time, it is crucial for the project plan to allow for change and adaptation,” the research project team emphasizes in a paper published at the London conference “Hand in Hand. Collaboration in Art and Conservation”. “Since a historically evolved collection contains a very broad spectrum of different paintings, the structure of the catalog entries is also deliberately flexible. Tintoretto’s Gonzaga cycle in the Alte Pinakothek or Veronese’s series of Ottoman sultans in Würzburg could also be included in this way.”²
The team examines permanent loans or works in the Bavarian state galleries on site. Whenever possible, the works are taken out of their frames. In some cases, the experts adapt the scope of the investigations to the respective situation on site, for example when paintings are embedded in the wall paneling of a historical interior, such as Andrea Vicentino’s cycle of biblical and allegorical paintings in the Imperial Hall of the Munich Residenz. Here, the team restricted itself to examining the fronts.
For the basic analysis of all the paintings, the Doerner Institut’s photography department initially took photos of the front and back, followed by detailed shots for a more in-depth examination. For each painting, the available archive materials are compiled and evaluated in a first step, such as historical inventory entries, acquisition and collection files, research literature or restoration protocols and conservation records of the material analysis.

The stereomicroscope is used for the in-depth examination of the art technology, supplemented by X-ray images and infrared reflectograms. At this point, the team meets to present and discuss interim results.
“We formulate initial hypotheses and adapt the further research accordingly,” says the team, describing the workflow. The next step is usually macro X-ray fluorescence scanning (MA-XRF) and, if necessary, cross-sectional material analysis.
The conservators and scientific staff take the samples together. The examination results do not always confirm the original hypothesis. Then the colleagues meet again to interpret the previous findings.
Documentation plays a key role in this major project. Therefore, all investigations are carefully recorded and digitally archived, including photos, classifications, sketches, notes, archive material, evaluation of research literature, comparative material and correspondence with other institutes or experts.
In addition to the individual restoration documentation of the paintings, an Excel database is being created, which will enable the staff to compare the art-technological and material-analytical information on the paintings more quickly and easily. “In this way, we can statistically evaluate the observations on the Munich collection and thus present artistic developments and characteristics of Venetian Renaissance painting in overarching scientific essays that link the art historical and painting technology perspectives in addition to the catalogue raisonneé”,⁴ says the project team, summarizing the approach.
For the director, the cooperation between conservators, art historians and academics in the project is exemplary. She hopes for a lighthouse effect: “Our research results, achieved through interdisciplinary teamwork, illustrate what can be achieved together.”

¹ Johanna Pawis: Newly discovered. Insights into research on Veneto, Giorgione and Tintoretto at the Alte Pinakothek, in: Andreas Schumacher (ed.): Venezia 500<< Die sanfte Revolution der venezianischen Malerei, Munich 2023, pp. 128-153, 246-251, here p. 131.
² Ronja Emmerich, Anneliese Földes, Johanna Pawis, Annette Kranz, Andreas Schumacher, Eva Ortner, Jens Wagner, Jan Schmidt, Heike Stege: The Venetian Painting Project. An interdisciplinary research study at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, in: Miranda Brain, Alexandra Gent, Amy Griffin, Lucy Odlin, Caroline Rae and Claire Sheperd (eds.): Hand in Hand. Collaboration in Art and Conservation, London 2024, pp. 3-14, here p. 4.
³ Ibid, p. 5.
⁴ Ibid, p. 5.

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