Painting treatment: van Dyck's Rachel de Ruvigny, Countess of Southampton

Anthony van Dyck's Rachel de Ruvigny, Countess of Southampton before treatment (left) and after treatment (right).

 

The National Gallery of Victoria possesses two important portraits by the seventeenth century Flemish painter, Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641). Both of these portraits were recently displayed in Antwerp and London at the major exhibition to mark the 400th anniversary of the artist's birth. One of these, the full-length allegorical portrait of Rachel de Ruvigny, the Countess of Southampton was cleaned in 1998/99.

Detail of portrait photographed during conservation treatment.
Note sketched-in strokes of paint under necklace, earings and in hair adornment.

 

This conservation treatment enabled the first ever thorough technical examination of the painting and brought to light important discoveries about the genesis of the portrait, including several artist reworkings. Among the numerous other versions of the painting, one in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England shows a virtually identical portrait but with the Countess holding a golden sceptre in her right hand. Microscopic examination of the paint surface of the National Gallery of Victoria version revealed residues of the golden ochre paint used for an identical sceptre, which van Dyck must have scraped off, for in removing it he had to add the tucked-in thumb which would have been hidden from view by the sceptre. Close examination of the hand shows the thumb applied in a single, swift stroke of paint. Other significant modifications of the image occur in the sitter's billowing blue drapery, around the hand resting on the glass sphere, and in the face portrait itself, where the artist's initial sketching-in of her pearl necklace and teardrop pearl earring and hair adornment is evident, strongly suggesting the portrait was painted from life.

Detail with sitter's proper right hand and small residues of ochre paint from removed sceptre.
Photographed after conservation treatment

 

Photomicrograph detail of gold ochre paint residues from removed sceptre

 

Carl Villis.
Flora McDonald Anderson, Conservator of Paintings.

 

Related information:

Rachel de Ruvigny, Countess of Southampton (c. 1640)

 

Anthony van DYCK
Flemish 1599–1641
worked in Italy 1621–27, England 1632–40
Rachel de Ruvigny, Countess of Southampton (c. 1640)
oil on canvas, wood
222.4 x 131.6 cm
Felton Bequest, 1922
1246-3