3D Printed Restoration of a Painting

A 16th century painting at the Catharijneconvent museum in Utrecht was found to be partly painted over: what used to be a gold background with intricate structural detail was now painted over with blue. What should conservators do with the painting: bring it back to the original state, or conserve it as is? Why not both? In this project, a 3D-printed copy of the painting was made and altered to bring back the original look of the painting. I worked on bringing back the 3D detail and pre-visualizations of the golden material on the digital copy of the painting.

The project was detailed by the lead researcher on the project, Sanne Frequin, in the unveiling of the 3D print and on national radio.

We also published a paper together, reporting on an earlier stage of the project.