The 1933 DuPont Mural showing the three panels now fully restored

"This ambitious project, the restoration and preservation of Maxfield Parrish's 1933 Du Pont Mural, is the American equivalent of the restoration of Leonardo Da Vinci's The Last Supper...."

Dr. Joyce Hill Stoner, Professor and Paintings Conservator Winterthur/University of Delaware Art Conservation Program

The stunning quotation above by one of the most respected professors in the country in the "art of healing paintings" brings home the reality of the monumental task undertaken by her program sponsored by the University of Delaware Art Conservation Department.

To understand the Herculean task undertaken, one should review the history that brought the mural to this point. In 1932, Maxfield Parrish accepted the commission from his childhood friend, Irenee Du Pont, to paint a spectacular mural to be placed in the organ well of his home in Granogue, MD. The painter executed a smaller oil (23"x32") which he titled Study for the Du Pont Mural. Du Pont approved the commission and offered to purchase the study as well. Parrish declined, saying the study was going to be hung over his fireplace. The completed mural consisting of three panels measuring 7' x 4' each was installed in the music well in 1933. By 1944, Du Pont reported to his friend that the paint was blistering, peeling and flaking about a foot from the bottom and asked the painter for possible causes and remedies. Parrish visited Wilmington on at least two occasions between 1945-1950 attempting to re-varnish and inpaint the areas in question. It was thought that the cause for this defect was that the severe cold weather in New Hampshire during the time of the painting had caused the paint to dry improperly.

In 1953, when it appeared that despite the ministrations to the work, it would continue to peel and fleck, the 83 year old Parrish climbed on a ladder and painted a totally new mural, with some minor changes. He was adamant that the work would be totally free since there was an implied warranty that the work would "last a lifetime" and he viewed it as "debt of honor to paint a new one." Du Pont accepted. Parrish removed the three original panels and had them shipped back to him in the original crate. He stored the offending panels in his attic at The Oaks, where they were found in 1978 by Alma Gilbert, when she and her husband purchased the Parrish home.

Being unable to afford the restoration of the works, Mrs. Gilbert donated them in 1985 to the American Precision Museum in Windsor, VT which had represented to her that they would seek funding for the three panels' eventual restoration. Unfortunately, in fifteen years, no restoration funds were found. Mrs. Gilbert then resolved to re-purchase the panels and to seek a new non-profit institution that might have the means of restoring them.

Enter Dr. Joyce Hill Stoner and the Winterthur/University of Delaware restoration program. Alma Gilbert was recommended by the Getty Museum in Los Angeles which had heard that Dr. Stoner was looking to find the lost 1933 mural for the possibility of taking it on as a project of Winterthur.  After Mrs. Gilbert notified Winterthur of the existence of the panels, and had Dr. Stoner come to Windsor, Vermont to inspect the murals, they were placed in Parrish's original shipping crate and sent to Winterthur in May 2001. According to Dr. Stoner, it has taken approximately 3870 hours and almost four years of work by close to 36 Master's level, undergraduate and pre-conservative program students to finish this ambitious and courageous project.

Left and center panels	Detail of left panel showing the deterioration

THE PROCESS TOWARDS "RESURRECTION"

The endeavor is under the tutelage of Dr. Stoner and Dr. Jennifer Mass who helped her collect and interpret data as well as Mark Bockrath, painting conservator and Parrish authority. Tatiana Bareis, a University of Delaware student working on her Master's degree in Art Conservation, designed the project's conservation treatment program. Ms. Bareis based her thesis and research on the writings of Maxfield Parrish Jr's on the method of his father's work and in the technical analysis by Mark Bockrath which included the first published cross-sections, ultraviolet, and infrared photographs of Parrish's work. The three year project is being worked on by graduate students not only from this country but also from Germany, Italy, and Russia studying for their Masters or Doctors of Conservation degrees. Each student is assigned a grid within the mural as his/her own responsibility. Among the "healers" of the mural currently at work are: Ellen Buschmeir (Germany) and Brian Baade (described by Dr. Stoner as the "star inpainters"), Matt Cushman, Matt Mickletz, Anya Mc Davis, Adam Novak, Katie Payne, Christina Smiraglia (Italy), Laura Brill, Ben Caguaioa, Donna Pastor, Molly Gleesm, Caitlin Taylor and Anna Shetov (Russia).

After intensive chemical, infrared and photomicrograph analysis, Ms. Bareis writes in her thesis that in order to develop an appropriate treatment for the three panels, the first step was to investigate the root cause of the flaking. The second and very daunting step was to consolidate 84 square feet of flaking painting, and to determine the correct location of chips that had been displaced. This was done by devising a method which collected the "sacrosanct" Parrish chips of paint, putting them in place by means of tiny tweezers after correct placement was determined. The next step was to create an agent (BEVA 37: ethylene, vinyl acetate) that would "wet" the chips, without changing the color or gloss. After the BEVA was allowed to dry, a tacking iron set to 67-70 degrees was used to gently soften and relax the paint layers, while also melting the BEVA 371 and allowing it to flow under and around the chips. It was then, after drying thoroughly that the work would be stable enough to be raised to a vertical position and the inpainting begun.

I am grateful to Dr. Joyce Stoner, who heads the conservation team for the restoration of the Parrish Du Pont Mural for the following interpretative notes:

"The Parrish conservation team has used some of the precedents set by the recent 20 year restoration of the Da Vinci's The Last Supper (1977-1997) to choose an approach for retouching or "inpainting". In the case of "The Last Supper" instabilities were present in both the wall chosen as the support and the experimental medium used for the paint. (Leonardo did not use the traditional "true fresco" technique) and the painting suffered the consequences, crumbling away from the wall. In the case of the fist version of the Parrish "Du Pont Mural", Parrish varied from his gessoed panels prepared by the Weber company by using unsized canvases stretched over each of the three large panels.
"Because the surface was unsized and excessively "thirsty" the oils and resin mediums of Parrish's multiple glaze layers were readily absorbed into the canvas, leaving much of the paint "under bound" and crumbly. The thinner layers, especially the blues, were in the best condition when the paintings arrived at Winterthur in 2001. The thickest layers--especially the deep browns, had flaked entirely away, apparently due to both lack of medium and their weight through their thickness.
"Modern materials are being used to consolidate and inpaint the Parrish murals. BEVA 371 (largely ethylene vinyl acetate) must be delicately dripped onto the curled and flaking chips of paint (after they have been carefully and individually put back in place with tweezers). Then, a tiny tipped tacking iron is used to gently heat each chip until it relaxes and can be uncurled and adhered o the supporting canvas, which has also been pre-sized with more BEVA. The relocating of the chips, applying adhesive, and re-adhering the chips back into place is a three stage process that takes about three hours for a 3"x3" area of flaking (nine square inches).

"The central Parrish panel had the most complete areas of loss: the lower half is 80% missing, with tiny islands of paint remaining, very like the robe of Christ and other sections of Leonardo's "Last Supper". In the areas where the majority of paint remains, we are using matching colors in the losses, using readily removable Golden PVA restorer's retouch paints. Like the "Last Supper", we are not filling the losses (replacing the thick gesso layer) but are essentially toning the support layer, so original paint can always be detected by its highest level. In the lower half of the central panel (which we have nicknamed "the Downstairs"), we are using a version of the Italian trattegio inpainting technique: -- 1 cm. long vertical transparent brush strokes--to provide a general toning color for general areas of missing mountains, as "The Last Supper" team of restorers provided general, slightly lighter toning colors to suggest the outline of robes, or hands. As in the approach to the inpainting of "The Last Supper", we are not trying to replace or mimic missing details, but to provide general legibility from a distance and a sacrosanct respect for remaining original chips of paint."

Conservation work in process	Left & center panels - June 2004

FUTURE PLANS

The restoration of the Parrish murals took over 4 years (2001-2004) to complete. This completion date allowed the work to be finished through the co-operation of Winterthur, the University of Delaware Masters and Doctorate candidates in advanced degrees in Preservation, so that it could be exhibited throughout the country in 2005.

Viewers were able to see the restored panels in the 2005 National Exhibit of Maxfield Parrish (Jan. 21, 2005-May 7, 2006) which I had the honor to curate for the Trust for Museum Exhibitions from Washington, DC. They were then shown for the first time locally during the summer of 2006 at the Cornish Colony Museum after it relocated to Windsor, VT. It is through this back breaking, labor intensive effort that America's version of "healing" and "saving" the equivalent of our own The Last Supper will have been accomplished. For this, I will be forever grateful!

ALMA GILBERT-SMITH
Founder and Director
The Parrish House Foundation