Rupert Featherstone | 2018 | Intervention
This lecture explores three restoration approaches undertaken by the Hamilton Kerr Institute, University of Cambridge.* Each painting had a very different conservation history:
- Sebastiano del Piombo’s Adoration of the Shepherds of 1511 had been subjected to numerous major, and some disastrous, restoration interventions in the past and needed extensive reconstruction.
- An English retable of c.1410 had a history of minimal interventions since its creation, but had experienced drastic changes attributable to iconoclasm and worship.
- The Harbour at St Ives-Concarneau, executed jointly by Christopher Wood and Alfred Wallis around 1930, is an example of an intervention by one artist over the work of another, which required an unravelling of its creation narrative.
These three paintings are not only from different schools and periods, but also have different conceptions, histories, and functions. Their restorations illustrate the perpetual dilemma of determining the extent of intervention in the restoration of works of art.
Rupert Featherstone has been the Director of the Hamilton Kerr Institute and Assistant Director for Conservation at the Fitzwilliam Museum for the past ten years. In these positions, he maintains oversight of the postgraduate Diploma in Conservation of Easel Paintings, and is responsible for the Fitzwilliam’s collection. He holds an MA in Natural Sciences and Art History from Magdalene College, Cambridge (1981) and a Diploma in the Conservation of Easel Paintings from the Hamilton Kerr Institute (1984). After an internship at the Royal Collection, he became a member of the staff with subsequent leadership postings at the Victoria Memorial Hall, Kolkata, India, at Hampton Court Palace and the Windsor Castle Conservation Studio of the Royal Collection. Rupert’s interests include the techniques of Stubbs and Rubens and, more recently, the materials and working methods of Italian painters of the 16th and 17th centuries, in particular Caravaggio, and Titian. He currently serves on the board of ENCoRE, the European Network for Conservation-Restoration Education.
* The Hamilton Kerr Institute is the University of Cambridge’s postgraduate teaching institution for the conservation of easel paintings, as well as the paintings conservation studio for the Fitzwilliam Museum.
Rupert Featherstone has been the Director of the Hamilton Kerr Institute and Assistant Director for Conservation at the Fitzwilliam Museum for the past ten years. In these positions, he maintains oversight of the postgraduate Diploma in Conservation of Easel Paintings, and is responsible for the Fitzwilliam’s collection. He holds an MA in Natural Sciences and Art History from Magdalene College, Cambridge (1981) and a Diploma in the Conservation of Easel Paintings from the Hamilton Kerr Institute (1984). After an internship at the Royal Collection, he became a member of the staff with subsequent leadership postings at the Victoria Memorial Hall, Kolkata, India, at Hampton Court Palace and the Windsor Castle Conservation Studio of the Royal Collection. Rupert’s interests include the techniques of Stubbs and Rubens and, more recently, the materials and working methods of Italian painters of the 16th and 17th centuries, in particular Caravaggio, and Titian. He currently serves on the board of ENCoRE, the European Network for Conservation-Restoration Education.
* The Hamilton Kerr Institute is the University of Cambridge’s postgraduate teaching institution for the conservation of easel paintings, as well as the paintings conservation studio for the Fitzwilliam Museum.
