Restoration of two paintings on canvas by Eduardo Rosales, "San Mateo" and "San Juan Evangelista"
By the painter Eduardo Rosales (1836-1872)
Restoration of two paintings on canvas by Eduardo Rosales, "San Mateo" and "San Juan Evangelista"
The great pictures of San Mateo y Saint John the Evangelist of the painter Eduardo Rosales (1836-1872) were part of the commission that the painter received to represent the four evangelists. The order was incomplete when he died before concluding it, arriving to make only these two paintings and the sketches for the canvases of San Lucas and San Marcos. The great size of these works had caused, with the passage of time, the deformation of the support, the canvas and the pictorial layer. The restoration of these oil paintings on canvas has made it possible to tackle these problems.
The two large oil paintings on canvas San Mateo y Saint John the Evangelist they are inscribed in an oval pictorial form, the rest simulate a golden frame ending in a quadrangular shape. Both evangelists are represented seated on clouds, writing on a great book and with their respective iconographic symbols, the eagle of San Juan and the angel of San Mateo. The figures are conceived with great monumentality, they are corporeal, energetic, made with bold and vigorous brushwork, sketched and expressive but with firm drawing. It is remarkable the quality of execution of these two paintings, which, in addition, are preserved notes and preparatory drawings, which allows them to be studied in depth.
Eduardo Rosales Gallinas (Madrid 1836 - Madrid 1873) is considered one of the best Spanish painters of the nineteenth century, for his originality and independence from the painting that was made at that time.
He began his training at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando but soon moved to Italy, where he concluded his training and developed much of his career. In Rome he made numerous drawings, sketches and paintings. When he returned to Spain he received important commissions from the aristocracy, mainly portraits for members of the administration and religious.
Already in his first works it is possible to appreciate his personal style. Although in his early years he opted for a Nazarene purism, he soon showed a tendency towards a more realistic naturalism. The knowledge of Italian and French academic painters, in realistic ways, was fundamental in his painting, but Velázquez's painting tradition also played a substantial role. He received numerous commissions of portraits in which you can see the plastic and even iconography Velazquez. But he stood out above all for his representations of historical moments such as Doña Isabel la Católica dictating her will o Death of Lucrezia. In his later years he was also interested in outdoor landscape painting.
He won prizes, medals and awards in different national (1864 and 1871) and international (Paris 1867) exhibitions. He was proposed as the first director of the newly founded Academy of Spain in Rome, although he did not get to occupy the post that did not come to his death in 1873.
In his final years he developed large decorative compositions, among them, the commission to paint four canvases representing the evangelists to be placed in the pendentives of the dome of the Santo Tomás church in Madrid. He made the paintings of San Mateo y Saint John the Evangelist, currently in the Cathedral of Santa María la Real de la Almudena, but his death prevented him from completing the other two dedicated to San Lucas and San Marcos. However, several studies and preparatory notes of all of them are kept in private collections and in the National Museum of El Prado, made in pencil on paper. The same Rosales, in a letter addressed to his friend Gabriel Maureta in August of 1872, commented on this assignment that "... They are match to do something great ... Once and a half the natural size, and although they are very high, making them very strong chiaroscuro I think they will not go unnoticed .... Good figurines could be made, remembering a little bit of the Sistine!
Francisco Sans Cabot completed the commission, although the paintings of San Lucas and San Marcos that the latter made are currently in the cathedral of Jaén.
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Before beginning the restoration process the supports of both canvases, of great size, were unstressed and deformed, which harmed the pictorial film. In addition, the pictorial layer was dirty and had rusty varnishes that obscured the whole preventing its correct appreciation. Some areas were cracked, and there had been uprisings, and even some loss.
On the other hand, the paintings had been previously intervened. It showed irregular cleaning and some losses had been reintegrated but not previously leveled, covering part of the original polychromy.
To solve these deficiencies, the restoration process began with the elimination of loose powder on the surface with soft suction and with brushes, on the front and back. Then compaction and solubility tests were carried out to determine the type of solvents and products to be used.
Once the canvases were removed from the frames, a new inert support was placed to provide flatness and stability to the canvases. Then the polychromy was fixed in the areas with upheavals and loss of adhesion.
Then a chemical cleaning by dissolution was carried out to remove oxidized varnishes and dirt of adhered fatty type, as well as repainting and retouching.
After the cleaning, the pictorial film was saturated, returning the original chromatic value.
The paint losses were then leveled to proceed with the chromatic reintegration, with an imitative criterion but differentiable at a short distance.
Finally, as a final protection, the paint was varnished with synthetic resin.
As far as the framework is concerned, a structural consolidation was carried out, sealing open areas and replenishing small losses with a synthetic resin. Afterwards, a chemical cleaning was carried out to eliminate oxidized protections and purpurine repaints. They then reintegrated the losses with appreciable fine gold at close range by means of dotting or soft screening with varnish colors. Finally the entire molding was varnished as a protection measure.