Restoring the Salvator Mundi
Recent restoration work has revealed that this painting was created by an artist working in the large and busy workshop of the painter Joos van Cleve (1511-41/2), based in the thriving port city of Antwerp, in present-day Belgium. Dendrochronology, the process by which the age of a piece of wood can be tested, showed that the painting has been executed on a panel made of Baltic oak dating to between around 1512 and 1550.
Small devotional images, and those representing the Salvator Mundi in particular, were popular. Van Cleve would have made a master painting which was then traced by members of his workshop to transfer onto new panels to meet this demand. In this painting, some of the transferred drawing remains visible to the naked eye – for example around Christ's fingers, lips and nose.
Recent technical investigation using infrared technology revealed the full drawing beneath the paint layers which showed not just a straightforward copy, but also areas of freehand in which this artist has grappled with the placement of the eyes, the orb and the cross. Although it is not a direct copy, Dulwich Picture Gallery’s painting bears close resemblance to a Salvator Mundi by Van Cleve in the collection of the Louvre Museum, Paris.
Learn more in our recent Reel exploring the process:
Conservation & Technical Analysis
Nicole Ryder
Tom Proctor
Tracey Chaplin
Ian Tyers
Tager Stonor Richardson
We are grateful to those that have made possible the conservation and re-framing of the Salvator Mundi:
Supported anonymously in memory of Fumiyo Boulton
Supported in memory of John Vadgama
The Barton Trust
Jean McMeakin and Arthur Maginn