Zagreb, Museum of Arts and Crafts, January - February 2007
An exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Crafts presented the six-year conservation-restoration on Titian's St. Mary Magdalene, St. Blaise, the Archangel Raphael with Tobias and the Donor from the altar of St. Mary Magdalene in St. Dominic's Church in Dubrovnik.
Although the painting is unsigned, it is referred to as “a work of the celebrated Titian” as early as 1595, in the first printed history of the town of Dubrovnik. Later authors of Titian’s monographs also consider it a part of master’s œuvre, but judge a varying share of the master’s hand.
Conservation-restoration work carried out in the Croatian Conservation Institute, accompanied by conservation and scientific research, considerably enhanced the legibility of painter's brushstroke, and confirmed previous opinions attributing the painting to Tiziano Vecellio.
The restored painting was shown alongside the posters presenting the course and the range of the complex conservation-restoration work which aimed at three things: providing better adhesion and consolidation of the painted layers’ weakened structure, removing dirt and yellow varnish while examining later interventions on the painting and retouching the painting so as to enable the original parts to dominate the visual experience of the whole.
After the exhibition, the painting was returned to its owner, the Dominican Monastery in Dubrovnik.