LAUSR

Banqueting House, completed in 1622, is the only surviving building of London’s royal palace of Whitehall. Suspended within the ceiling of the Banqueting House since 1636 is a unique in situ ceiling painting series by Sir Peter Paul Rubens (Figure 1). As part of an on-going programme to conserve and re-present the Banqueting House, the building’s exterior was conserved in 2016 and a series of due diligence studies have been undertaken to develop a position for the conservation of the interior including its ceiling paintings, within the context of a conservation-regulated Grade 1 listed site. Given their significance, the paintings warrant an approach to their comprehensive care that is of the highest quality achievable by today’s advanced conservation standards and will last for decades to come. A project of this immense scale (with a total canvas area of 247 m) required a team of conservators, building surveyors and scientists at Historic Royal Palaces (the independent U.K. charity that looks after the Banqueting House and funds this major project) to take an evidence-based decision-making approach, working within this ‘whole building’ heritage conservation project. An iterative, phased decision-making process for the planning of the major project has been directed by due diligence studies comprising technical conservation research, scientific investigation and debate, to arrive at an informed proposal for the conservation and presentation of such an important interior scheme within the wider setting of a heritage site. Due diligence is a business-focused decision-making approach to a conservation project whereby many aspects of research are carried out to provide stakeholders with multiple options and ranges of how far to proceed with the full implications of each option so that they can be evaluated to decide the overall approach. This project has provided a rare opportunity to carry out a full systematic technical conservation survey of all nine paintings, utilising a range of scientific methods and archival research to determine how the paintings were created, how they have changed and establish an accurate record of their condition (Figure 2). Since installation in 1636, nine restorations have occurred: most significantly, in 1906–1907, the paintings were given a rigid pasted-on lining with a plywood board ‘marouflage’ backing that remains to this day, well adhered. Accounts indicate the paintings have been removed from the ceiling five times, the most dramatic occurring during the Second World War when the larger five paintings were cut up to move all nine to safe storage outside London. In addition to condition, the project also considered the legibility of the paintings. Discoloured past restorations, multiple varnish layers, blanching, accretions, and crust formation affect portions of the surface and, with limited access to the paintings at a ceiling height of 17 m, previous restorations have only been able to remove these defects partially. A due diligence approach, for such a significant artwork and heritage site, has required the concurrent delivery of investigations that increase the quality and amount of relevant technical information accessible to us as decision-makers, ensuring that systematic research drives the planning process for an ultimate conservation campaign by clarifying and prioritising the benefits and risks involved. Through a number of studies to date from 2016 to 2018, and with a wide range of internal and external experts (including an expert advisory group), conservators assessed the feasibility and benefits of a number of conservation treatment options. Three strands of technical research delivered a step change in understanding of the materials, condition and treatment options for the ceiling painting, its structural elements and surround; the environment within the building, including computational fluid dynamics modelling to propose the most effective building and services adaptations to improve preservation conditions; and consideration of appropriate presentation standards for a painting scheme by Rubens. The research has involved the