The Easel

The art of restoration: Artemisia Gentileschi, Rembrandt, Van Eyck and a new gallery trend

The puzzling non-appearance of Leonardo’s restored Salvator Mundi in its new Abu Dhabi home puts a spotlight on art restoration. Some old paintings have had a hard life and cleaning reveals that some of what is seen is not by the artist. Watching a painstaking restoration, sometimes now public, is “a new kind of art pleasure … [and] always tasty meat for the pigmented naysayer.”