Thesis title: La tecnica dell'olio su carta. Storia e conservazione
Oil painting on paper was employed by leading Western artists from the fifteenth century. Despite the considerable number of surviving works — crucial witnesses to its history, development, and conservation issues — a systematic study of this technique is still largely absent from scholarly literature.
Traditionally considered a rarity within artistic production, oil painting on paper has a fragmented history, distinguished by a general scattering of information closely related to its hybrid nature, which prevents a classification within the conventional categories of drawing or painting.
The peculiar materiality, characterized by the conscious and deliberate use of media and supports with chemically and physically incompatible properties, in fact reveals a full stylistic autonomy.
Focusing primarily on sources and artworks dating from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, corresponding respectively to the periods of greatest production and of technical evolution, this study examines the practice of oil on paper within three main areas of investigation that provide the essential elements for reconstructing its history: the critical reception; the evidence found in artists’ treatises; and the conservation and restoration issues.
Through an interdisciplinary approach that connects art-historical research with scientific analysis applied to cultural heritage, the research proposes a documented contribution to the understanding of the key historical and technical aspects of oil painting on paper. It presents the first results of analytical investigations carried out on selected case studies, together with the documentation of the main degradation factors identified.
The cross-references between historiographical and archival data, combined with empirical and diagnostic analysis, outline a more precise framework for the interpretation and understanding of the oil painting on paper artworks, providing new insights and interpretative tools useful for their preservation and valorization.