MessaggeroSeptember 2017CALIFORNIA PATRONS

OF THE ARTS IN THE VATICAN MUSEUMS

Restorers Enjoy View From The TopBy Debra Colletti

On a day that boasted limitless views of the Los Angeles basin,

twenty Restorers gathered at the Getty Museum in Brentwood on August 17th to tour the exhibit Birth of Pastel. Everyone drew near as the curator of the exhibit, Emily Beeny, led us through the evolution of colored chalk drawings to pastel paintings depicted in exquisite 16th and 17th Century examples. We learned that since the Renaissance artists have worked with the dry colored medium of chalk. Pastels, in naturally occurring colors and fabricated ones made from powdered pigments and binders, were a cheaper and more quickly executed medium than oil painting. Pastel drawings were often done on blue paper, sometimes made from recycled fabric, which allowed the artist to depict blue tones in the piece. The exhibit features early examples of Italian pastel preparatory sketches to more fully rendered pieces such as the Venetian portrait artist Rosalba Carriera’s Muse (mid 1720s). Her technique is almost painterly in its detail of the Muse’s hair and the luminosity

of her skin. Benedetto Luti’s The Head of an Apostle (c. 1712) also achieved both graphic and painterly effects, as in the apostle’s beard where dark lines and cloud-like wisps contrast in the subject’s beard.

In 17th Century France pastel portraiture art became very popular in the royal court of Louis

XIII. The king was so enamored of the medium that he demanded that his court artists teach him to draw!

The Restorers were honored to be treated to an unscheduled presentation by Davide Gasparotto, Senior Curator of continued on page 3

the Paintings Department. He introduced us to a newly acquired work, Virgin and Child with St. John the Baptist and Mary Magdalene by Francesco Mazzola called Parmigianino (c. 1535-1540). Done in oil on seven sheets of paper laid on panel, the work is a delightful portrayal of the Virgin looking at the Christ child

embracing the infant St. John. Both children are assisted by Mary Magdalene who is shown a second time being elevated to heaven in the unusually vibrant and lush background. Mr. Gasparotto informed us that this

Muse by Rosalba Carriera The Head of an Apostle by Benedetto Luti

CALIFORNIA PATRONS OF THE ARTS IN THE

VATICAN MUSEUMS

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Greg Stanislawski, Chairman • Greg.Stanislawski@claconnect.com • 626-793-3600

Monica M. Lomenzo, Coordinator • mmlomenzo@gmail.com

California Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museums301 N. Lake Ave., Suite 900, Pasadena, CA 91101

Canova’s Two Self Portrait Busts Restoredby Debra Colletti

Thanks to the generous sponsorship of Dr. William and April Costigan,

Antonio Canova’s Two Self Portraits have been meticulously restored and returned to their rightful places in the Vatican Museums.

Canova (1757-1822) is considered one of the greatest Neoclassical sculptors. While a young boy in northern Italy, Canova’s talent was recognized and fostered by mentors. At the age of fifteen Canova moved to Venice to continue his studies at

the Academia di Belle Arts di Venezia. He soon became a favorite sculptor of Venetian politicians and other elites. He attained international acclaim during

his lifetime and completed commissioned works throughout Europe.

During a sojourn in Rome, Canova became convinced of the importance of gypsum plaster cast not only for their educational value to aspiring sculptors, but also as works of art in their own right which could be enjoyed by collectors of more modest means. The two plaster self-portraits which the Costigans sponsored were in dire need of restoration. They were covered with heavy layers of dirt, had sustained breakage, had been poorly restored previously, and had layers of an improperly applied patina. The busts were cleaned using a combination of chemicals, a laser technique, and a rubber-based solvent and then received a final chromatic treatment of lime water. This painstaking work revealed the minute and lifelike details of the busts.

Thank you, William and April, for adopting and preserving these exquisite examples of Neoclassical sculpture! n

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background detail illustrates the legend that late in her life Mary Magdalene lived in a cave and fasted. Twice a day she was lifted up to heaven, fed and then returned to earth.

Thereafter the Restorers enjoyed a delicious private luncheon at the Bel-Air Restaurant. The table talk was lively as everyone shared their impressions of the exhibit, their summer adventures and generally reconnected with friends. n

Restorers from page 1

Greg Stanislawski, Therese Wolf, Thad Gembacz, Michael Feeley and Camille Gembacz

Patrons executive board: James Low, Debra Colletti,

Greg Stanislawski and Dan McLoon

Greg Stanislawski, Emily Beeny and Maria Grant

Virgin and Child with St. John the Baptist and Mary Magdalene

Bruce Brown, Bill Villasenor and James Low

Debra Colletti, Vicki McLoonand Monica Lomenzo

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California Patrons Launch New Website and Video SeriesBy James E.R. Low

The California Patrons with our executive board member James Low

leading the Media Committee launched a new website and video series this summer to better support the broader Patrons of the Arts organization and the Vatican Museums in Rome. At the end of 2015, the Vatican Museums began work on creating a new, video-centric website that was launched in February 2017. Their ultimate goal is to place the entire collection – more than 250,000 individual pieces – online and start openly sharing the content of all the Vatican Museums with the world, whether people are able to visit in person or not. In practice, this means not only keeping the museum open and welcoming visitors. Instead, this also means actively pushing out the full content of the museums to the world. To help support this bold mission led by Vatican Museum Director Dr. Barbara Jatta, the California Chapter immediately set out to recreate our own new and improved digital media capabilities to

better support and coordinate with the museum’s ambitious new strategy of combining tradition and innovation into a perfect synthesis. We now have a wonderful new website and legacy video to share with you and others to help them do just that.

To do this, we enlisted OneLight Studios (onelightstudios.com) to help produce a series of videos, anchored with a special four-minute legacy video that highlights the important mission, good works, and the fun benefits of membership of the California Patrons. And in an effort to mirror the video-centric website of the Vatican Museums, we also upgraded our website to showcase our new videos across all operating systems and platforms. We encourage you to visit our new website and see this wonderful video at www.californiapatrons.org.

Our intention with this big digital media push is to coordinate our own efforts here in California with the overarching goals and strategies undertaken by the Vatican Museums in Rome. The Vatican Museums and the Patrons of Arts in Rome are clear

that they would like to have a much larger digital media push and expand their efforts that will ultimate lead to more Patrons, more restorations, and new chapters around the world. More importantly, though, the Museums want every visitor who enters the Vatican Museums – including virtually, through these electronic pages – is immersed by a sense of privilege at finding oneself inside the Beauty that leads to Faith, and that these digital tools may be a vehicle for knowledge, harmony and spirituality. We hear you, Rome! And, because we have Hollywood in our backyard, we are happy to take the lead and begin creating these vehicles the Museums and rest of the Patrons chapters can share and leverage from our efforts.

During March’s leadership meeting, we sent our film crew to Arizona to film interviews with Dr. Barbara Jatta and Father Daniel Hennessy, L.C. so we could include them in our first video. We also took the liberty of filming other chapter leaders from around the world in case they would like to make

In light of our wonderful new website we need your emails so we can stay in touch between newsletters and events. Please email Kim at kim.christian@CLAconnect.com. Please include all email addresses associated with your membership.

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their own videos promoting their own chapters. This way, each chapter who participated will be able to save money by using previously filmed, existing content we provided for them, and keep the quality of the videos extremely high by leveraging the professional film crews we sent to Arizona. As a result, other chapters now have a very easy and affordable option to make their own, chapter specific videos in the future.

At the same time, we recognize not all chapters will be in a position to make their own videos, either because of a lack of finances or access to professional volunteers, so our next steps will include making a second video that focuses on promoting the general Patrons of the Arts in the

Vatican Museums organization across the board. This way the Vatican Museums, the Patrons of the Arts in Rome, and all chapters around the world will be able to use this central video as an important digital tool to: (1) raise awareness of the Patrons, (2) create an urgency to get involved, and (3) have a built-in call to action -- in this case, learning more and joining as Patrons, wherever they may be.

In the meantime, we are incredibly lucky here in California to have such a large and active membership who continues to be involved and generously restore the cultural artifacts of the Vatican Museums. Please check us out online and remember to sign up on our website using your email so we can keep you updated via email. Also check out the 2017 Wishbook for any interesting restorations you might

be interested in and keep an eye out for the 2018 Wishbook coming out in Fall. If you have any questions, comments or ideas about how we can do this even better, please let us know. And please reach out to me directly if you have any questions about logging into your account through the website. Contact: James.Low@thameswolfe.com. And a very special thank you to our Media Committee leaders Dan McLoon, Ann Lawrence and Kristan O’Donnell. Thank you!

The Vatican Museums website: http://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en.html

California Patrons website: www.californiapatrons.org n

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Delighted to find this Vatican Museums Shop during a layover at the Alitalia

terminal at Leonardo da Vinci — Fiumicino Airport. Be sure to look for it

and shop next time you are there!

Enhanced Accessibility At Pio-Christiano Museum

The California Chapter is pleased to announce that it has funded the installation of a wheelchair lift in the Pio-Christiano Museum in honor of

Patron Brian Stevens. The funding for this project included contributions from Brian’s friends for the occasion of a special birthday. The Pio-Christiano Museum exhibits Christian antiquities from the 2nd to the 6th Century AD, including sarcophagi, inscriptions, and archeological finds. A plaque commemorating the installation in honor of Mr. Stevens has been installed. Thank you, Brian, for being the inspiration for this sponsorship! n

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Bronze Treasures Restored And Returned To Gregorian Etruscan Museum

By Debra Colletti

The California Chapter proudly announces the completion of its sponsored

work, the Eight Shields from the Regolini Galassi Tomb. In 1836, in modern day Cerveteri (NW of Rome), the Regolini Galassi Tomb, one of the richest and most representative of Etruscan tombs, dating back to 675 - 650 BC, was excavated. Some of the objects found at this important archeological site are displayed in Room II of the Gregorian Etruscan Museum.

The tomb was partly carved into rock, enlarged with stone blocks and covered with a mound of dirt to make the tomb appear large from the outside. The interior is a series of spaces and rooms that served as corridor,

cells, antechamber and ultimately a much larger room which was the burial room of a noblewoman or royal, evidenced by the jewelry and other precious items that surrounded her.

In the antechamber there was another burial bed, decorated and surrounded by bronze statues, ornate furniture and vases. The object of the California Chapter’s patronage was the eight large embossed bronze shields that hung on the walls of this chamber. The shields were and still are very fragile and fragmented with gaps over 20% - 90% of the surfaces. This suggests that they were symbols of rank rather than actual weaponry. The intricate decorations on the shields depict geometric motifs and images of animals.

Our Chapter’s sponsored conservation effort, which occurred over a one year period, first involved mitigating the damage inflicted to the shields by previous restorations in the 1800s and 1970s. These earlier efforts had left a layer of green material on the fronts of the shields and a glued lining on the backs. Additional restorative efforts included cleaning the surfaces, preventing further corrosion, strengthening cracks with an epoxy resin, and finally applying a color treatment.

Congratulations to everyone in the California Chapter for making it possible that millions of visitors to the Museums will be able to admire these items for many years to come! n

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301 N. Lake Ave., Suite 900Pasadena, CA 91101Return Service Requested

Save The DateSunday November 19, 2017

Norton Simon Museum

DegasInvitations and details will be sent in the fall to all current members

Don’t forget to look for your invitation to our Patrons Gala on October 7 going out to all current 2017 members-please renew your membership to get on “the list”

as we have a very special guest speaker: a former Swiss Guard.