Artemisia: Conserving a 17th Century Masterpiece with Elizabeth Wicks

Join us at the Providence Art Club on Sunday, November 17th for this FREE program from 1-4PM starting with a reception in the Maxwell Mays Gallery followed by a lecture and demonstration in the Maxiell Studio. Light snacks and prosecco will be provided. Full bar available via credit card purchase (No American Express).

This event is part of the Splendor of Florence presents: Sott’ Acqua: A Tale of Two Cities, a festival that celebrates a 25-year-old Friendship Pack between Providence and Florence, Italy. Programs will take place from November 9-17 throughout downtown Providence and at the Rhode Island School of Design, Brown University and Grace Episcopal Church. Click for event listings and further information.

Painting conservator Elizabeth Wicks will share her process for her restoration of the ceiling painting Allegory of Inclination, created for Michelangelo’s home, now the Casa Buonarroti Museum in Florence. This work, completed in 1616 by the 22-year-old artist Artemisia Gentileschi, the most celebrated female painter of the 17th century, was the first frontal female nude ever painted by a woman artist. Using herself as a model, Gentileschi’s allegorical figure depicted ‘the natural talent for creativity.’ It was later considered overtly risqué and about fifty years after the work was painted, the Buonarroti family called in a well-known Italian Baroque artist, Il Volterrano, who censored the work by painting over the figure with drapery and veils.

Utilizing scientific analysis and modern technology, Ms. Wicks was able to reveal how the original painting looked. She will describe the methodology and her journey in discovering the mystery in this masterpiece.

Following Elizabeth Wick’s talk, RISD Professor Bill Drew will explain and show each step in the techniques of pure egg yolk tempera, egg-oil emulsion, and the Venetian method of oil painting. The purpose of his demonstration is to illustrate the complex nature of the techniques that challenge art restorers such as Ms. Wicks.

More about Elizabeth Wicks - Elizabeth Wicks’ art conservation studio is in the center of Florence Italy (https://conservart.info/), where she restores fine art from ancient to contemporary. With over thirty years in the field, Wicks directs conservation projects for museums, churches and public properties, as well as for private clients. She also consults regularly on conservation projects in the United States.

Wicks has a BA in Medieval and Renaissance Studies from Hamilton/Kirkland Colleges. She was a recipient of the Florence Fellowship for Graduate Studies in Italian Renaissance Art with Syracuse University and completed her art conservation degree (MFA) at Dominican University in Florence. Wicks also has a post-specialization at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of the University of Pisa, with a project conducting research on calcium oxalate patinas on marble monuments. She is co-president of the Women’s International Network in Florence, she teaches in the five-year MA program in Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage of the University of Viterbo (UNITUS), she has published numerous articles on conservation and is a member of the conservation committee of the International Council of Museums. The BBC recently featured her restoration of Allegory of Inclination: .

More about Professor Bill Drew - Bill Drew first became interested in Renaissance painting as a student in RISD’s European Honors Program in Rome, Italy in 1969. As an abstract painter, this art continued to inform his paintings, and in 1980 he was awarded a Fulbright-Hays grant to Italy for painting and conduct independent research on Renaissance painting techniques.

Drew is a professor at the Rhode Island School of Design and for twenty-five years he conducted a “Techniques of Renaissance Painting” travel class for RISD students where they viewed first-hand great examples of Renaissance painting in Venice, Florence and Rome after having had first-hand experience in the methods and techniques of Renaissance painting.

He has lectured in numerous colleges and museums, and in 1994 was awarded a special residency by the government of Pakistan to deliver a series of lecture regarding the similarities between the painting techniques of late-medieval and early Renaissance paintings and traditional Mughal paintings of the 15th and 16th Centuries.

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