In May 2022, research, and conservation/restoration work on the "Decius Mus cycle" was launched. The focus of this comprehensive project centres on investigating the materials and techniques used to execute the paintings, stabilizing and securing the works for future generations, as well as improving the aesthetic presentation of the series as a whole. The challenging conservation-restoration work is supported by specialist conservators from Atelier Walde and Atelier Giuliani.
Condition of the Paintings
The “Decius Mus cycle" has been in the ownership of the Princes of Liechtenstein since 1693. Owing to the careful treatment of the paintings down the centuries, the condition of the whole cycle has hardly altered since its acquisition. From the end of the nineteenth century, earlier documentation of the painting’s condition and treatments record the stabilization of paint layers and the re-saturating of the paint surfaces by varnishing. The latest procedure was undertaken in 1974, which involved strip-lining the edges to stabilize and tension the canvas supports.
Remarkably, two of the paintings – “Decius Mus Relating his Dream” and “The Death of Decius Mus” – are unlined and have exceptionally well-preserved paint surfaces. The reverses of these works thus offer a unique insight into the original structure of Rubens’s large-format canvas paintings. “The Death of Decius Mus” consists of seven vertical sections of canvas, joined with seams, adding up to a total length of more than five metres.
Painted inscriptions on the back of the paintings (transport information) are evidence that the other paintings in the cycle had already been relined in the seventeenth century, that is, before their acquisition by Prince Johann Adam Andreas I von Liechtenstein. These (lined) paintings exhibit typical signs of distress caused by the excess moisture from the glue-paste adhesive during the lining process. These structural deformations are made obvious through compression cleavage (tenting) of the paint film, caused by the shrinking of the original canvas support. In addition, localized delamination between the lining canvas and original canvas has resulted in noticeable, localized undulations within the original canvas support.
