In 2005, when art dealers Alexander Parrish and Robert Simon purchased a nearly 500-year-old painting of Jesus holding a glass orb for $1175, they realized it had sustained much damage and heavy-handed over-painting through the years. They brought the painting to Dianne Modestini to examine and evaluate. Modestini soon determined the work to be an original by non-other-than, Leonardo da Vinci – the long lost Salvator Mundi!
On display at the Museum, visitors can experience a true-to-life recreation of the restoration process as the main exhibition hall has been meticulously transformed into a detailed workshop environment with a scaled figure of Modestini delicately laboring over the surface of an exact replica of the unrestored Salvator Mundi painting. The display provides an awe inspiring, uncanny, immersive affect into the studio atmosphere and time-consuming dedication required in the rarefied field of fine art restoration.
Diane Modestini is a world-renowned restorer, conservator, and expert on 19th-century paintings. After obtaining her Master’s and Certificate of Advanced Study in Art Conservation in New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art hired Ms. Modestini as an Assistant Conservator of Paintings and for years, she also served as an educator at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts. In 1987 she left the Metropolitan and set up a private practice in paintings conservation in New York and during this period, worked closely with her then recently married husband, Mario Modestini, widely acknowledged as the greatest restorer and connoisseur of Italian painting of the past century. Today, Dianne Modestini continues to lead the Samuel H. Kress Program at the Conservation Center of the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University where she teaches an advanced paintings class on the cleaning and retouching of old master paintings and a course on technical materials for connoisseurship for art history students.
The current exhibition titled “Saving the Savior”, is scheduled to run through the end of May followed by detailed presentation of restoration techniques and practices in the field of fine art conservation.
The museum has also announced plans later this year to expand the immersive exhibit into a full scale Salvator Mundi
144 Union Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11231
For More Information: 929-365-9680, RealSalvatorMundi@gmail.com
