Frieze Magazine / Opinion Piece / 9.11.19

by Tom Jeffreys

In the handsome Edwardian interiors of Swansea’s Glynn Vivian Art Gallery hangs a dirty old painting. Why is it on show in such condition? Once attributed to Italian baroque painter Mario de’ Fiori (1603–73), the painting – of Cupid surrounded by flowers – became covered in coal dust and dirt during years of storage in a boiler house. It had not been shown in public for decades – until now.

Artist Sophy Rickett came across the painting during a visit to Glynn Vivian’s storerooms earlier this year. She became fascinated not so much by the painting as by the dirt: the material history of an unloved work of art. Rickett, who has long engaged with what is deemed undesirable in existing (often photographic) images, worked with the collection’s conservation officer, Jenny Williamson, to clean a very small section of the painting: a neat circle – like a porthole or lens – directly over the cherub’s right eye, which is closed in sleep or wistful contemplation. The result is like peering through layers of time. In the gallery, as part of Rickett’s solo show ‘The Curious Moaning of Kenfig Burrows’, the painting is accompanied by two labels: one reads ‘Cupid w surface dust’; the other ‘Circle on a Plane’.

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