Wrapping RAMM’s largest picture
25 March 2008
The last of the city's treasures are being packed away, ready for the Museum's refurbishment. Many objects, like RAMM's largest painting, are particularly demanding.....
Over 3.5m tall and 4.5m wide, RAMM's largest painting is too large to fit through the Museum doors. Specialist contractors were employed in March 2008 to remove the painting from its frame and stretcher and wrap it onto a specially designed cylinder for removal, transport and storage during the redevelopment.
To protect the painting during storage, a mixture of isinglass (made from the swim bladders of Brazilian Lumpfish) and honey was used to stick a layer of model span tissue to the paintwork. The mixture bonds the tissue firmly to the contours of the paint but can be released with ease using just a damp cloth. Facing outwards to avoid creasing and compression, the rolled up painting was then carefully wrapped in polyethylene sheeting and sealed for storage.
The 1793 painting by James Northcote, The Entry of Richard and Bolingbroke into London (King Richard II, Act 5, Scene 2), was inspired by Shakespeare's play. It illustrates the moment when after years of power struggle with the nobility, the isolated and authoritarian Richard II (1377-1399) gets captured by the exiled Henry Bolingbroke's (1367-1413) men and brought back to London to public humiliation. Bolingbroke, the future King Henry IV, has not yet been crowned, but symbolically holds a crown. A dejected Richard II, by contrast, looks downward as his people taunt him.
Refurbishment is expected to start in May when all the city's treasures will have been safely packed away.
