Conserving Paintings and a Museum’s Role : Art: LACMA officials say its exhibition focusing on restoration of two 15th-Century works provides a context for art history and an institution’s responsibility.

“From Aragon and Castile: The Restoration of Two Spanish Paintings From the Los Angeles County Museum of Art” is one of the smallest exhibitions ever mounted at LACMA. Installed for only 15 days through Sept. 18, it is also one of the shortest. But, according to the museum’s staff, this comparative view of two paintings is both big and long in terms of effort and educational value.

Seizing a window of opportunity--between major exhibitions of Korean and Indian art--the museum’s departments of conservation and European paintings and sculpture have collaborated to unite “The Last Supper” (circa 1490) by Pedro Berruguete and an unknown artist’s “Triptych With Scenes From the Life of Saint George” (1425-50). The Berruguete, which was purchased in 1990 with funds from the Ahmanson Foundation and put on view the next year, is already familiar to LACMA aficionados, whereas the anonymous triptych is making what amounts to a debut. Curators say the painting has been exhibited in the past but that it has mostly languished in storage since 1950, when LACMA received it as part of a bequest from William Randolph Hearst.

Although painted in the same country and century, the two 15th-Century Spanish works appear to have more differences than similarities. But that’s the point, according to curator J. Patrice Marandel and paintings conservator Joseph Fronek.

“Pairing two paintings that differ greatly in technique, style and subject provides a context to explore art historical issues and to demonstrate the responsibility we have to the works we acquire,” Marandel says. “This is a behind-the-scenes show” and “it’s the wave of the future,” he says, noting that museums are making better use of their collections in these days of reduced budgets and fewer imported blockbusters.

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Visitors learn--from text panels and a brochure--that the Saint George legend is portrayed in a retablo, or altarpiece, probably created near Zaragoza in Aragon. Working in egg tempera and gold and silver leaf on wood panels, the unknown artist employed an impressive array of techniques to create illusions of floral designs on brocade costumes, reptilian textures and dry landscapes.

“The Last Supper,” on the other hand, is a sarga, the Spanish term for a painting executed in a water-and-glue-base paint on linen. With its dry surface, broad strokes and vast (6 feet by 10 feet) dimensions, Berruguete’s work resembles a fresco. It is thought to have been created for a monastery’s refectory in Castile, northwest of Madrid.

Both works have an Italian connection. Berruguete’s fresco-like work emulates a method of painting on plaster frequently used in Italy. And many scholars believe that “The Last Supper” was inspired by Andrea del Castagno’s painting of the same subject in the refectory of Sant’Apollonia in Florence. As for “Saint George,” the painting techniques bear similarities to gold ground pictures of the Italian Renaissance, but the composition of stacked vignettes depicting the saint’s mythical life follows Spanish tradition.

Fronek faced completely different challenges in restoring the two paintings. In “The Last Supper,” he had to remove discolored adhesives that had been infused into the linen to attach flaking pigment in a previous restoration effort. To patch torn side sections, he added new fabric that he covered with a putty-like substance, textured to match the original linen. In keeping with current conservation practices, all restorations are applied with the same synthetic medium for easy detection and removal.

“Saint George” was a more straightforward job. While restoring the triptych as closely as possible to its original luster, Fronek removed several decades of grime along with past restorations that had become discolored. The rewards are obvious, he says, pointing out exquisite details that have endured for more than 500 years.

Still, as Marandel says, “you don’t just get out some cotton and Ajax to clean a painting.”

And that is part of the exhibition’s message. “We want the public to know how much care goes into the maintenance of the collection,” he says.