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NICOLA

STORIES OF RESTORATION WITHIN THE HISTORY OF A FAMILY

History

The origins

Nicola Restauri has its roots in ancient times. Guido Nicola together with his wife Maria Rosa, started restoration atelier in 1947.

Thanks to his father-in-law Giovanni Borri, painter, restorer and antiquarian in Genoa and Turin, Guido attended the workshops of two good restorers after the First World War: Angelo Abossetti, from whom he mainly learned the practice of conservative restoration, and Ettore Patrito, chemist and restorer at the forefront of those years - in his laboratory he carried out analyses with Wood's lamp, infrared photographs and radiographs - from which Guido absorbs the scientific approach to the work of art and learns updated techniques for the cleaning of the paintings.

Towards the end of the fifties, the workshop of Guido and Maria Rosa received the first orders from the Government Department for Cultural Heritage. Guido specialises in the conservative restoration of canvases and panels and the stripping of frescoes, while Maria Rosa perfects the restoration of artworks on paper, parchment and fabric.

Work and Family

The passion for the restoration involved the sons Gian Luigi and Anna Rosa too, who began very young to collaborate with their parents, each finding their space inside the workshop.

Gian Luigi is directed towards the conservative restoration of frescoes, stone and terracotta works and the recovery of archaeological finds, especially Egyptian, Anna Rosa, flanked by Maria Rosa, acquires dexterity in the restoration of artworks on paper and parchment, but finds her natural predisposition in the pictorial integrative restoration on paintings, sculptures and frescoes.

Gianna Tognin, a pupil of Guido since 1969, acquires skills in the conservative restoration of canvases and frescoes and in 1974 she marries Gian Luigi.

After several years of training in the various sectors of the restoration employed by Guido and Gian Luigi, Nicola Pisano, who will marry Anna Rosa in 1979, specialises in cleaning. From the various technicians who regularly frequent the laboratory (photographers, physicists, chemists and radiologists) acquires the practical knowledge necessary for the realisation of non-invasive instrumental analysis of Ultraviolet, Infrared and X-rays. He is entrusted with the documentation of the various works in restoration, including the management of the photographic and radiographic office of the laboratory for development and printing.

Individual companies and the birth of Nicola Restauri

In 1975 the laboratory already formed a functional group of students who live in the family with the Nicola as in a Renaissance workshop.

Inside the laboratory, four artisan companies are created, each with its specialisation: that of Guido, Gian Luigi, Anna Rosa, in which the three owners work with their spouses, and that of Giuseppe Chiappino, nephew of Guido.

The different skills and professionalism are made available to a new company: Nicola Restauri, born in 1988.

The New Generation

Guido and Maria Rosa's grandchilds also work in the company today: Alessandro, architect, son of Gian Luigi and Gianna, who deals with the design of restorations and fittings and looks after the company's foreign sector, and Eleonora, daughter by Anna Rosa and Nicola who intervene operationally both in the laboratory and on site in the conservative restoration of the various artefacts - in particular stones, terracotta, frescoes, and in the sector dedicated to Oriental Art, on stone, metallic and cloth material; she also handles the management of both paper and computerized archives. The second-born of Gian Luigi and Gianna, Marco, a chemist, founded Adamantio Srl in 2005 and deals with chemical analysis for the Cultural Heritage.

The Company Today

Today the company has a large laboratory that is spread over more than 3500 square meters of surface and has inside several departments equipped for the different interventions, large and bright halls for the restoration of ancient and contemporary paintings of large and very large format, a photographic cabinet, an archive containing the testimonies of over 60 years of work - which includes photographic and negative prints both in B / W and colour, colour slides, colour transparency (colour disks), graphic annotations in frottage on filmsy paper (A4), reliefs on tracing paper, technical reports, restoration cards, work notebooks with notes and graphical notes, publications - rooms intended for non-invasive instrumental analysis on X-rays, Infrared and Ultraviolet, spaces equipped in safety with aspirators of various kinds for the cleaning and painting of the paintings, autoclaves for the anoxic disinfestation and vacuum-sealed saturation, rooms for the deposit of the works of art, a carpentry shop and also warehouses for logistics.

Staff and Organization

The Nicola Restauri team is made up of a large group of administrative, technical, art historians, architects and restorers. Most of them have gained decades of experience in a specific sector of restoration and related activities.

Much of the activity, the one that is not seen, takes place in the offices. Not only the research and consultation activity, which can count on an internal library with over 20,000 volumes and a complete photographic archive that documents the work of more than six decades and in continuous evolution, but also the management and design of the interventions developed by the technical office, which takes care of the documentation of the works, the finding of funding and the coordination of research and development projects in collaboration with various institutions and institutes.

The technical and operational organisation that characterises Nicola Restauri allows to perform even complex jobs quickly and with guaranteed excellent results, solving difficult technical and logistical problems.