Enfilade

Press release from the National Gallery of Ireland:

Richard Castle, Russborough House, Wicklow, Ireland, 1740s

In 1902, Lady Geraldine Dowager Countess of Milltown gifted to the National Gallery of Ireland the contents of Russborough, Co. Wicklow, in memory of her husband, Edward Nugent, 6th Earl of Milltown (1835-1890). The gift was so extensive and varied – it included paintings, furniture, sculpture, mirrors, silver and objets d’art – that it was necessary to construct a new building (The Milltown Wing) to accommodate the collection.

Included in the Milltown Gift were three eighteenth-century scagliola console table-tops, the largest of which is currently on loan to Russborough, and now in need of conservation. To this end the National Gallery of Ireland has commissioned two conservators, Chiara Martinelli and Francesca Toso of the Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence, who have the specialist expertise in the restoration of this medium.

Don Pietro Belloni, Scagliola table-top (detail) Photo © 2010 National Gallery of Ireland

Scagliola is an artificial ornamental marble. Used as a substitute for real marble it is created by way of a complex process which uses pulverized selenite, mixed with glue and pigments. The technique was refined in the mid-eighteenth century by Enrico Hugford, Abbot of the Vallombrosan Monastery of Santa Reparata, near Florence.

The large scagliola table top at Russborough is one of three commissioned from Hugford’s pupil at the monastery, Don Pietro Belloni, for Russborough, by Joseph Leeson 1st Earl of Milltown during his Grand Tour to Italy in 1744. The design of the table is intricate and highly colourful with a rich pattern of decorations framing pastoral scenes in each corner and a large
landscape in the centre.

Scagliola console base (detail) Photo © 2010 National Gallery of Ireland

Given the size (107 x 211.5 x 6cm) and fragility of the piece, conservation on the table top is being carried out in situ at Russborough until the end of January 2010. It is also being reunited with the recently recovered gilded Rococo console base that Joseph Leeson had made for it when it first arrived in Russborough. The scagliola table-top and its original base will return to public view when the house reopens in the spring.

Scagliola is a plaster made of pulverised selenite (gypsum), mixed with glue and pigments. In the Russborough tables, a coperta layer of black scagliola, composed of gypsum, natural glues and charcoal pigment was thinly spread on a stone support. After an initial polish using pumice and oil the craftsman carefully etched out the design, just a few millimetres deep, using a burin, or a similar tool. These shallow areas were filled with liquid gypsum plaster, glues and pigments, and this process was repeated as necessary to add layers of additional detail to the decoration. Finally the finished top was polished using oils, waxes and shellac. The refinement and sophistication of detail thus achieved is remarkable. While Belloni may have been criticised by Mann as being ‘inferior’ to Enrico Hugford, and for his slowness, the table tops he produced for Leeson and his friends are examples of the scagliola technique at its finest. (more…)