How e'er much more the eyes do see,
Than the brain doth comprehend!
(Batava Tempe, lines 215 and 216)
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How e'er much more the eyes do see,
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The restoration of the portrait of Susanna Hoefnagel (1561-1633), the mother of Constantijn HuygensThe restoration was undertaken in the spring of 2002 by Suzanne Stangier in the atelier of the Frans Hals Museum, to whom the portrait belongs.Hofwijck, the Huygens Museum, commissioned the restoration with the support of the Stichting Koepelfonds, the Voorburg-Vliet Rotary, the Voorburg Rotary, the Sint Martinus Fund and the city of Leidschendam-Voorburg. The portrait will be exhibited in Hofwijck as a long-term loan from the Frans Hals Museum.
The portrait of Susanna Hoefnagel is presumed to have been painted around 1629, on the occasion of her daughter Geertruyd Huygens’ wedding to Philips Doublet. It was probably intended as a pendant to the portrait of her husband, Christiaen Huygens, painted before 1624. While the painting has been ascribed to various artists in the past it is now attributed to the Hague court painter and portrait artist Michiel van Miereveld (1567-1641). The subject is painted as a three-quarter portrait in three-quarter profile. She is looking out at the viewer and wearing a black costume with a high collar of white lace. The sitter is wearing a variety of jewellery on her clothes and in her elegant hairdo. The portrait is a standard size, 70 x 58 cm, painted in oil paint on panel and is made up of three joined planks. This technique was commonly employed in portrait paintings, especially in larger ones, to avoid a seam running through the face. The panel has been shaved down to a thickness of 0.5 cm, making the painting very fragile and especially vulnerable to movement and climate changes. For its protection the painting has been placed in a so-called microclimate box. The painting is framed behind glass and sealed in the back, creating an stable inner climate that surrounds the painting. The face at the beginning of the restoration
The applied paint layer is fairly thin, leaving the wood grain of the support discernible on the surface. A thin layer of paint was applied to a light ground with very few thick textured brushwork details. The darker tones are now overbearing while the vividness of the painting depends on the light-dark contrasts in the composition. In spring 2001 the painting was in a bad condition and had been relegated to permanent storage in the depots. Shortcomings, technical ones as well as in the aesthetic appearance of the painting, made the exhibition impossible. In order to make the painting presentable again a full restoration was necessary. The clothes at the beginning of the restoration
In the painting, specifically in the light areas, there were some damages in the paint layer reaching all the way to wooden support. Along the edges of these losses and in various other places there was a danger of further paint loss. The entire surface was covered in a remarkably thick and yellowed layer of varnish. In addition, the varnish was blanched in some places, disturbed by a network of fine hairline cracks rendering the image cloudy and opaque. In these places the rich detail of the composition was obscured. The seams at the beginning of the restoration
The two vertical seams in the painting have always been visible. An earlier restoration attempted to cover over these seams with a broad overpaint. The overpaint on the seams and the background had discoloured and darkened in the course of time, severely distorting the image. Not only the colour but also the texture was distracting, as the overpaint was applied quite thickly. The paint layer had developed craquelure, caused by the upper layer cracking during the drying process so that the underlying paint layer became visible in the cracks and resulted in a rugged surface. The portrait halfway the restoration under ultraviolet light
After the flaking paint and edges of the damages were consolidated, i.e. fastened with glue, the cleaning of the painting could begin. First the surface dirt was removed after which the varnish removal was started. Parts of the overpaint could be removed simultaneously with the varnish. During the cleaning process old remnants can be detected with the use of UV light. Exposure to UV light causes the different layers of paint, varnish and retouches to fluoresce in different ways. In this way the original paint can be distinguished from the later additions. The process of varnish removal can be also monitored in UV light. The face halfway through the restoration
In these two details of the face of Susanna Hoefnagel during the removal of the varnish layer, the differences and impressive changes in the painting caused by the treatment are easy to see. The colours have become clearer, recovering the subtle shades of the flesh tones. The painting reacquires a sense of depth that had been invisible under the brown veil of varnish. The seams halfway through the restoration
The right-hand seam presented an unexpected problem during the restoration process. The original 17th century plank turned out to have been replaced by a new one during a previous restoration. The colours of the background on this plank no longer matched the colours in the original background on the other two planks. The paint layer on the new plank also dissolved at the same time as the layer of varnish. This led to the decision to remove and repaint the background. The parts of the costume on the right-hand plank could be preserved and reintegrated. The overpaint along the left seam could be removed with a combination of solvents and mechanical procedures. It now became clearly visible that the overpaint on the seams was much broader than strictly necessary. Damage reaching down to the wooden support could only be discovered directly next to the seam, whereas beside that the original paint layer was still preserved under the overpaint. The original paint layer that had always remained visible and the original paint layer that was hidden by the overpaints now showed a difference in colour, as the hidden layer had been protected from light and other aging influences over time. The portrait after restoration
After restoration the painting displays bright and fresh colours with strong contrasts, delicate colour shadings and distinctive depth of composition between portrait and background. The monochromatic grey background has regained its original soft graduation from light to dark. It had lost this during previous treatments and overpaints along the seams as well as due to the addition of a new right-hand plank. The background now once again has a uniform appearance thanks to the detailed imitation of the original background on the newly painted background on the right-hand plank. This successful rendering obscures the fact that the right-hand plank is not original.
The damages in the light areas were filled in and retouched in matching colours after removing the varnish, so that here as well uniformity of appearance has been achieved. Now the composition is uninterrupted by damage and discoloured varnish. The viewer’s eye is drawn to the fine features and intricate shading of the face. The quality of the painting has once again become apparent.
Thanks to the restoration numerous details in the various painted fabrics such as the soft white lace and heavy black brocade have now become visible. The right-hand seam during and after the restoration
Along the right-hand seam, in the portion with collar and shoulder, you can see how the old reconstruction of the clothes has been integrated with the newly painted background. In this way it was possible to limit the scope of the repainting.
In the course of the restoration the damage along the left-hand seam was filled in and retouched. The colour differences between the paint layer that had been exposed and the paint layer that had been temporarily protected by the overpaint were retouched to ensure a continuous background. The transition along the right-hand seam between the original and the retouched background has also been painted in smoothly. The signs of age in the original paint layer were carefully copied on the right-hand plank to be as close to the original as possible. The portrait before and after restoration
The face before, during and after restoration
Detail of the face before, during and after restoration
The left-hand seam during and after restoration
The right-hand seam during and after restoration
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