Matthew in the Irish National Gallery

The National Gallery is rated one of the twelve most important European Old Master art museum collections. He assumed responsibility of, for example, Rembrandt van Rijn’s Rest on the Flight into Egypt, Nicolas Poussin’s, Acis and Galatea. In Italy, with the Italian government’s Istituto Centrale del Restauro in Rome he restored large fragments of Andrea Mantegna World War ll gravely damaged frescos in Padua and Giotto’s frescos in Assisi.

Twenty years later Matthew was now a permanent resident in Monte-Carlo in the Principality of Monaco. While Intervening to remove various levels of degraded and age darkened unpleasant previous restorations of a Baroque painting, a Mother and Child, the artist made a serendipic observation.

As Matthew’s conservation proceeded, the canvas began, gradually, to reveal her ancient beauties, artist’s style of painting, choice of colours, particularly the ochre pigments, and the manner of brushwork used to apply them to the canvas. He noticed the similarity with the Orazio Gentileschi’s, early seventeenth century David and Goliath that he had restored at National Gallery of Ireland. It uncovered the quality and the obvious beauty of the work of art not to mention the female orientated subject matter of the suffering young mother. The discovery was to lead scholars in the obvious direction of Orazio Gentileschi’s highly talented daughter, Artemisia.

Painted around 1612 it is, hypothetically, her personal take on the sexual assault an obnoxious fellow painter, Agostino Tassi subject her to in the same year. This kind of fortuitous discovery, it is important to remember, is not as rare as one would suppose in the world of art. However torn and damaged is an old painting you possess, the paint flaking from the canvas from damp and neglect, or the surface blackened by smoke and the passage of time, never, ever, be tempted to discard it.

Matthew Moss, Three painters in a  monégasque landscape  protected by  Sainte Dévote.

Monaco, a sovereign and picturesque city-state on the Mediterranean Riviera, has become Matthew’s inspiration for his, The Adventures of Rembrandt, paintings.
Some of his Rembrandt’s adventures and misadventures have, as their background, the Maritime Alps, into which Monaco nestles. One of the most notable is the Three Artists in a Monaco Landscape whose success inspired the artist to create another version in oils on canvas.

The most spectacular was the final large go-to version, the centrepiece of the 2018 Monegasque Government’s Fine-Arts Biennale at the Auditorium Rainier lll. It was a magnet and an opportunity for many art lovers to enjoy a face-to-face encounter with one of his original paintings.
A more accessible manner for art collectors, not resident on the Côte d’Azur, to actively grow their family’s cultural heritage and to own an investment an art lover would be proud of is through, www.Rembrandt.ie.

Matthew then launched a new, The Adventures of Rembrandt painting, titled, The Rembrandt, Geertje & Hendreicje Show.
Art-lovers, and the simply curious, had the opportunity to see as his creation [link]in the July 2020 Monegasque Government’s Fine-Arts Biennale.

FURTHER READING

• Restored Paintings: catalogue of restored paintings in the National gallery of Ireland, 2nd. edition (1971)
• Catalogue of restored paintings: Victorian Conservation, Australia, (1977 and 1978) Caring for Old Master Paintings, 0-7165-2531-3
• Monaco Mon Amour, 0-943884-01-2
• Les Aventures de Rembrandt, 0-943884-04-https://www.academia.edu/31048895/ARTEMISIA_GENTILESCHI_-_1593-1653 Young mother breastfeeds her infant..18-2-2017Moss, Matthew. – /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemisia_Gentileschi – This page was last edited on 28