Invitation opening
CODART members are invited to the opening of the exhibition on Saturday 18 May. The invitation can be found here.
From the museum
The Ecce Homo altarpiece (1544) by Maarten van Heemskerck, one of the treasures of the National Museum in Warsaw, has just returned from its 2,5 years long sojourn in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where it was cleaned, examined and restored as the focus of a conservation partnership. The conservator Iwona Stefańska participated in the project from the part of the National Museum in Warsaw, working in the studio with Getty conservators at both the beginning and end of the treatment. In the course of the project the triptych had been intensively studied by conservators and curators together with Getty Conservation Institute scientists. The research included X-radiography, ultraviolet photography, infrared reflectography and identification of painting materials. The results, significantly enhancing the understanding of Heemskerck’s materials and techniques, were presented in an exhibition Drama and Devotion. Heemskerck’s „Ecce Homo” Altarpiece from Warsaw, held in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles from June 2012 to April 2013 and published in a richly illustrated book under the same title, by A.T. Woollett, Y. Szafran, A. Phenix. The exhibition in Los Angeles, with ca 250,000 visitors, was a big success. Now, thanks to the support of the Paintings Conservation Council of the J. Paul Getty Museum, who financed the entire project, the Drama and Devotion exhibition opens in the National Museum in Warsaw on May 18th. The ceremony at noon of the day proceeding the Night of the Museums will be followed by a public lecture on Investigating a Dutch Renaissance Master given by Dr Anne Woollett and Yvonne Szafran (a dual perspective into the discoveries made through collaborative conservation and curatorial practice) who worked on the project in the J. Paul Getty Museum.