« Le retour de Daubray au Théâtre du palais-Royal ». Etude et conservation-restauration d'un portrait de comédien peint par André Gill (1878 ; Paris, théâtre du palais-Royal) : comparaison de différents systèmes de protection visant à amortir les variat…

This master Thesis was dedicated to the study and conservation of an actor’s portrait and its frame property of the Théâtre du Palais-Royal, an historical theater still in use today in Paris. L’ami Daubray is a standing portrait that was displayed at the Salon in 1878, the annual art exhibition of paintings and sculptures of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, painted by the artist André Gill, a famous caricaturist during the second half of the 19th century. This easel painting was in bad condition due to many tears, punctures and severe accumulation of grime. The goal of this project was to enable the permanent exhibition of the portrait in the theater. The condition report was completed by a study of the climate of the theater and a reflection on the risks specific to this environment. We were able to quantify the risk of mechanical damage caused by the variations of relative humidity with the diagramme de sensibilité (sensitivity graph), developed by the conservator and engineer Alain Roche. A scientific research was dedicated to compare different frame systems destined to reduce those variations. An enclosed system was selected, consisting of a glass pane and a polycarbonate backing board that should be able to reduce the variations by 95%. The conservation treatment on the painting and the frame allowed L’ami Daubray to be displayed in the Theater.