A portrait of Zubiaurre on Rusiñol restored

Sitges Museums has carried out the restoration and recovery of a work recently incorporated into the collection of the Maricel Museum, a portrait of Santiago Rusiñol, by Valentín Zubiaurre dated between 1911 and 1912. The work was carried out in the museums' restoration and conservation workshop.

The work had a layer of generalized surface dirt of an organic nature, both on the obverse and reverse, with accumulations in the lower area, between the canvas and the frame, which in this case was affected by an insect attack. In addition, the pictorial layer had touches from previous restorations and had a blister, while the frame had several losses.

The restoration process of the painting has focused on consolidating the layer and cleaning it - in order to eliminate dust and surface dirt - and then varnishing it. Subsequently, a stucco and chromatic reintegration have been carried out. The frame has also been disinfected with a curative treatment.

The frame has also been mechanically cleaned with a palette knife and vacuum cleaner on both sides, disinfected and chemically cleaned, to then re-integrate the support and chromatics, with subsequent varnishing.

Portrait of Santiago Rusiñol is one of the six works that can be seen in the exhibition New Acquisitions for New Stories 2025 (part 1), which presents recent additions to the Sitges Museums collection. The exhibition is at Can Rocamora and constitutes a story that allows us to rethink the history of art, question certain established canons and make visible trajectories that have been relegated for decades.