Since it was not on display in the galleries, this painting needed further treatment to prepare it for viewing in a traveling exhibition. A thick natural resin varnish had been selectively reduced in the past leaving the painting’s colors unbalanced. The yellowed varnish particularly distorted the cool tones of the landscape, sky, and horses which are essential to the image.

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Treatment included reducing the varnish layer until all areas of the painting were equally clear and removing discolored retouchings. Varnish residues, stains, and local accretions were then reduced with a solvent gel followed by mechanical removal. Once cleaned the paint layer was treated for consolidation and flattening of raised cracks, and completed with fills and preliminary inpainting in watercolor. 

 

Though I was not able to finish the final retouching stage, the cleaned and prepared painting was left in the capable hands of the Prado’s skilled conservators who completed its final treatment seen below.