Art conservators Jill Keppens, left, and Kayla Metelenis, right, work on sections of the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025.
Art conservator Jantine Maessens works on a section of the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025.
Visitors watch art conservators at work on the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025.
In a recent handout provided by the KMSKA, The Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, is shown after varnish removal and initial filling, but prior to any retouching at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium.
Uncredited - handout one time use, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Art conservators Jill Keppens, left, and Kayla Metelenis, right, work on sections of the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025.
Art conservator Kayla Metelenis reaches for her palette as she works on a section of the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025.
A section of the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, showing areas currently being worked on at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025.
Art conservator Kayla Metelenis works on a section of the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025.
Art conservators Jill Keppens, left, and Kayla Metelenis, right, work under a scaffold on sections of the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025.
A section of the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, showing areas currently being worked on at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025.
Art conservator Jill Keppens works on a section of the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025.
A Visitor looks at The Adoration of the Magi, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, which is scheduled to be restored in the future at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025.
Art conservators Jill Keppens, left, and Kayla Metelenis, right, work on sections of the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025.
Virginia Mayo - staff, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Art conservator Jantine Maessens works on a section of the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025.
Virginia Mayo - staff, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Visitors watch art conservators at work on the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025.
Virginia Mayo - staff, ASSOCIATED PRESS
In a recent handout provided by the KMSKA, The Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, is shown after varnish removal and initial filling, but prior to any retouching at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium.
Uncredited - handout one time use, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Art conservators Jill Keppens, left, and Kayla Metelenis, right, work on sections of the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025.
Virginia Mayo - staff, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Art conservator Kayla Metelenis reaches for her palette as she works on a section of the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025.
Virginia Mayo - staff, ASSOCIATED PRESS
A section of the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, showing areas currently being worked on at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025.
Virginia Mayo - staff, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Art conservator Kayla Metelenis works on a section of the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025.
Virginia Mayo - staff, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Art conservators Jill Keppens, left, and Kayla Metelenis, right, work under a scaffold on sections of the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025.
Virginia Mayo - staff, ASSOCIATED PRESS
A section of the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, showing areas currently being worked on at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025.
Virginia Mayo - staff, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Art conservator Jill Keppens works on a section of the Enthroned Madonna Adored by Saints, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025.
Virginia Mayo - staff, ASSOCIATED PRESS
A Visitor looks at The Adoration of the Magi, painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, which is scheduled to be restored in the future at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025.
ANTWERP, Belgium (AP) 69制片厂制作传媒 When an iconic painting is in need of restoration, it is usually taken to a studio to be worked on in seclusion.
In the case of a massive Peter Paul Rubens masterpiece in the artist's Belgian hometown, the studio had to be taken to the painting. In the largest room of Antwerp's Royal Fine Arts Museum, the restorers have the eyes of visitors on their backs and 69制片厂制作传媒 sometimes 69制片厂制作传媒 criticism ringing in their ears.
At 6 meters (19.6 feet), the 69制片厂制作传媒淓nthroned Madonna Adored by Saints,69制片厂制作传媒 a lush swirl of flesh, fabric and drapes, stands taller than an adult giraffe. A team of six restorers is poring over it for a two-year cleanup, which is scheduled to end this fall. Compare that to Rubens himself, who could put paint to canvas on such a massive work in only a few weeks.
No wonder such panache, the grand gesture in a simple brushstroke, left all in awe 69制片厂制作传媒 then and now. Rubens, perhaps , painted the work in 1628 in the studio of his house in the city.
69制片厂制作传媒淚t's such a flamboyant painter that, yeah, we love it,69制片厂制作传媒 said Ellen Keppens, grasping for the proper effusive words. Together with her twin sister, Jill, Ellen is leading an international team of six women restorers.
On a recent morning, they were applying undertones to the Baroque masterpiece, sometimes crawling along the wood-paneled floor to apply a touch here or there. Later, they had to crouch under a metal staircase before heading up to the top corner for another dab of retouching there. Who ever said art restoration was not physical labor?
69制片厂制作传媒淟ike our colleague says, she's become really good at yoga,69制片厂制作传媒 said Keppens of a team member. 69制片厂制作传媒淵ou notice that you can bend in all kind of angles in front of a painting.69制片厂制作传媒 When a crick in her neck gets too bad, she can just walk to the computer desk next to the painting for some administrative work.
She'd better not look too far to her left down the room known as the Rubens gallery. At the other end stands another iconic work of the master, equally daunting and gigantic, and also badly in need of restoration: 69制片厂制作传媒淭he Adoration of the Magi.69制片厂制作传媒
Koen Bulckens, the curator of the Baroque section at the museum, knows the challenges ahead.
69制片厂制作传媒淲e will use this studio now for the treatment of this work,69制片厂制作传媒 he said, looking at the Madonna, the brightness of the original paint revealed after the painstaking removal of aged varnish. Then, he said, comes "another work, which is the 69制片厂制作传媒楢doration of the Magi.69制片厂制作传媒"
And the clock is ticking. 69制片厂制作传媒淭he project is set to end in 2027, which will be the 450th anniversary of Rubens' birth. So it will be a jubilee year," Bulckens said.
As with so many centuries-old paintings, the biggest problems are old varnish and bad previous restorations.
69制片厂制作传媒淭his work was covered by a very exceptionally, I must say, thick and yellow varnish which distorted on the one hand the colors, but on the other hand also the brushwork, which had become impossible to see,69制片厂制作传媒 said Bulckens.
In addition, two paintings hanging on either side of the Madonna had been cleaned 35 years ago, leaving the Rubens in the middle looking jaundiced. 69制片厂制作传媒淚t was obvious how yellow it looked. You can play with the museum light to make it a bit bluer, but that was really not a definitive solution,69制片厂制作传媒 he said.
Removing the varnish, though, left the painted surface with a dull complexion. Restorers working in a studio know the removal is part of the process and the final result will only look more splendid later. At the museum itself, some visitors were convinced the beloved painting was being ruined and, despite the ample "do not disturb" signs, let their concerns be known.
69制片厂制作传媒淪ome absolutely we don69制片厂制作传媒檛 realize it. And then they think, like, was it a good idea? Yes, of course it was a good idea,69制片厂制作传媒 said Keppens. 69制片厂制作传媒淲e know what's going to happen next,69制片厂制作传媒 once new varnish and touches are applied.
69制片厂制作传媒淪ometimes you have a moment to explain to visitors, but often we are just working and, yeah, but then we hear the comments in the background, of course,69制片厂制作传媒 Keppens said.
Standing up for the master 69制片厂制作传媒 and for their own work 69制片厂制作传媒 now comes naturally. After dealing with Rubens, month in and month out, 69制片厂制作传媒渉e is a very large part of our lives.69制片厂制作传媒
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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