DMA conservation studio finishes Baroque masterpiece

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Last November, I wrote about Mark Leonard, the chief conservationist at the Dallas Museum of Art responsible for overseeing the painstaking restoration of pieces in the DMA’s collection. In the piece — which you can read and look at here — I photographed Leonard working on Zeus and Semele, a dramatic and florid painting by Jacques Blanchard (sometimes know as “the French Titian” for his intense colors and use of form). At the time, I noted that the process had been going on for six months and still want not complete.
Until now. Yesterday, the DMA unveiled the finished restoration, and if you want a sense for what task Leonard had in front of him, merely take a look at the before and after photos to see the emergence of the original beauty. Crazy.