In 2019, the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens in Jacksonville, Florida, received a Bank of America Art Conservation Project grant to conserve The Lamentation of Christ by Peter Paul Rubens. The small painting on copper, made during Rubens’s early years in Italy, is a centerpiece of the museum’s Baroque collection.

Treatment took place at ArtCare Miami beginning in January 2020. Our conservators used X-radiography and infrared imaging to guide the work, removed discolored varnish and overpaint from earlier restorations, and inpainted areas of loss. The gilded frame was also stabilized and repaired. The Lamentation returned to public view at the Cummer in 2021.

Watch the video to see the treatment in progress.