The so-called Unterberger Virgin with Child and the Infant John the Baptist offering an Apple

Surface:

• slightly dusty and dirty, excrement from flies

Varnish:

• very glossy, presumably new application

• remnants of a yellowed older varnish in the recesses

Paint layers:

• the adhesion to the support/ground layers is good

• numerous drying cracks

• partiall abrasion of the paint layers

• numerous retouches, particularly over the split, in the left half of the painting, on St John's elbow, on the infant Christ's neck and so forth

• fine network of cracquelée

Support:

• exhibits a torc and a convex warp

• the reverse marbled

• at the bottom centre there is a split in the wood (250 mm) that has been filled with a thin piece of wood

Frame:

• the frame members are profiled, painted and 80 mm in width

• the corners and edges exhibit knocks and losses

• the guilding and painted zones are abraded and exhibit a white discolouration and white residue (possibly from a cleaning agent?)

• the reverse is stained

• on the left the springs of the frame are slightly corroded

• the painting is not fitted correctly in the frame, particularly at the top right corner

[Condition report Claudia Eger, Ferdinandeum 2005]

• Beech wood, 77.8 x 58.5 cm

• technique: tempera and oil

• signed with the Cranach insignia at the top right

• marbled on the reverse

• two joins covered with cow hair

• new split at the bottom on the old join

• groove along the edge from a later date

• a label from the Cranach exhibition in Berlin, 1937 (Deutsches Museum)

• very thin paint layers, particularly in the flesh paint and the hair

• isolated shrinkage in areas of thicker paint in the shadows

• exhibits the typical tempera cracquelée in the highlights of the flesh paint

• in the black background the varnish has oxidized

• overpaint: the Virgin's cloak is entirely overpainted with a thick and hard dark green tempera, that deviates slightly from the original form. The bluish-green original paint exhibits isolated thinner areas and small old losses, that were covered by the overpaint.

[Treatment report, Ludwig Neuhauser, Ferdinandeum 1985]

• a sliver of poplar wood was inserted into the new split and it was reglued

• the overpaint on the cloak was removed mechanically under the microscope

• the oxidized areas [of varnish] in the background were subjected to repeated swelling and cleaning

• retouching of the losses in the cloak and the hair

[Treatment report, Ludwig Neuhauser, Ferdinandeum 1985]