Research Exhibition: Rework, Retouch, Care: Case Studies from the Hertziana Collection.

The exhibition showcases, in most cases for the first time, a selection of chronologically and stylistically diverse drawings that share notable material features and a layered history: from the preparation of the support, to subsequent retouching interventions, to collectors’ stamps and frames. Close attention to these material aspects, along with a dedicated conservation and diagnostic campaign carried out by the Laboratorio di Restauro Opere d'Arte su Carta of the Istituto Centrale per la Grafica, have provided an opportunity to explore not just issues of technique, function, and typology but also questions of value, authorship, and attribution.

This research exhibition puts the study of works on paper on display, highlighting its collaborative and iterative nature. Raising open questions about these works, the display invites the scholarly community visiting the Hertziana daily to share insights, observations, and proposals for new attributions.

The exhibition builds on “Rework” (2024/25), the Annual Research Initiative of the BHMPI Lise Meitner Group Decay, Loss, and Conservation in Art History; on the Getty Paper Project “Touched/Retouched: Paper across Time, 1400–1800,” a collaboration between the Lise Meitner Group with the Istituto Centrale della Grafica; and on the 2025 Gernsheim Study Days “Mettere mano: Reworking Early Modern Drawings.” Together, these initiatives revisit care and conservation practices for works on paper through a historical perspective.

Please note that the opening will follow a keynote lecture by Jonathan Bober, “Mettere mani: A Typology of Rework in Drawings,” at 17:30.

CURATORS

Francesca Borgo is Lecturer in the School of Art History at the University of St Andrews and the Lise Meitner Research Group Leader at the BHMPI. She is an art historian of early modern southern Europe with a specialization in the art and theory of Renaissance Italy with a PhD from Harvard University. She has held residential fellowships at the Getty Research Institute, the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut, the University of Hamburg, and Villa I Tatti.

Camilla Colzani is currently a research fellow at the University of Urbino with a research project on Federico Barocci‘s sources. A graduate of the University of Bologna, she received her PhD from Roma Tre University. An expert in the history of drawing and graphics, she has collaborated with international institutions such as the Musée du Louvre and the Gemäldegalerie in Dresden. She worked with the Lise Meitner group of the BHMPI to organize the workshop “Touch/Retouch: Paper across Time,” funded by the Getty Paper Project, and has continued this collaboration for the present exhibition.