102 The Church of Our Lady od Špilice – St Mary retable / St Joseph retable Modification of the paintings The painting “Death of St Joseph” is set in a decorative frame that shows traces of modification to accommodate its use in this retable. As indicated through the disruption in the formerly symmetric disposition of ornaments, the frame was cut in the lower area of the vertical bars, probably to reduce the height. All corner joints were opened and cut as well to reduce the width. The outer molding of the frame was planed down to match the surface of the aedicula. The painting itself is still attached to its original strainer but reduced in width by only 1-2 cm. The panel paintings in the lower register were cut out from bigger paintings of the former polyptych of Girolamo di Santa Croce. The former oval canvas painting of Virgin Mary with the child was mounted onto a square wooden panel construction73, the corners between the oval gilded frame and the inner edges of the retable structure were filled with carved ornamental boards in a symmetrical pattern. These framing elements also show tool marks and losses in the ornamental pattern, again pointing to a reduction of the format to fit the position in the retable. The painting of the purgatory is mounted on an unusual boxlike construction. It is highly likely that these major changes and the current arrangement of paintings from different contexts took place during the reorganisation of the church interior in the 19th-century. There is no trace of the original content of the retables. This reorganisation also introduced a new dedication. The dedication of a retable to St Joseph is typical of the 19th century.74 Although these interventions include abandonment of original material, they are to be understood and preserved as a “layer of time” in the history of the retables. Treatment during the 20th century Both retables were treated recently in order to place them on a new narrow box-like sub-construction and to optimise the stability of the construction. With that higher position, the older cut-outs of the columns were left untreated. The retables were found mounted to the wall with modern screws. The paintings are fixed with modern screws to separately installed wooden blocks.
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