For a four-month period, visitors to the SMK can watch the museum’s conservators at work, wielding scalpels and pigments to restore a painting that usually hangs on the wall of Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II's private quarters. The restoration of J.S. Wahl’s painting A Banquet at the Court of the German Emperor Charles VI is the New Carlsberg Foundation’s gift to the Queen on the occasion of her 75th birthday.

The large-scale painting A Banquet at the Court of the German Emperor Charles VI. has hung on the walls of Fredensborg Palace – now the private residence of H.M. Queen Margrethe II – since 1872. Painted by Johann Salomon Wahl in 1741, the painting was acquired for the Royal Danish Kunstkammer in the year of its making and has been part of the royal collections ever since.

With the passage of the years, the painting deteriorated to the point where it could no longer withstand being on display. A lack of adhesion between the paint layer and the canvas has caused paint to peel off in many areas, and even more paint threatens to fall off across the entire canvas. The painting is in need of thorough conservation and restoration.

Such restoration has now been made possible by a donation from the New Carlsberg Foundation, a birthday present to the Queen. The treatment requires more than 2,200 hours of painstaking work where the conservators will reattach unstable paint, laminate the canvas onto a new one and carry out extensive retouching of the damage sustained over the years. When the extensive conservation process is complete, the painting will once again be on display at Fredensborg Palace.

Visit the open studio

The SMK has many years of experience with opening up its conservators’ workshops to visitors. Doing so offers the general public a chance to gain insight into the work done behind the scenes at the museum.

From 29 October 2015 to 28 February 2016 the SMK’s conservators will allow all visitors to peep into the museum’s engine room. During this period, visitors can follow the conservators’ work on this extensive restoration project – and will also have the opportunity to ask questions.

The painting

A Banquet at the Court of the German Emperor Charles VI was painted as a copy after an original by Martin van Meytens created for the Viennese court in 1736. In the years that followed, several different versions were painted by a range of artists.

The original work was probably painted in connection with either the wedding or the engagement between the emperor’s eldest daughter, Maria Theresa, and Francis Stefan of Lorraine. Their union was an important event in European history; upon her father’s death a few years later Maria Theresa became sovereign of the Austrian and Hungarian lands as the Habsburg family’s first female successor to the throne. When Francis Stefan was subsequently elected Holy Roman Emperor as Francis I, their marriage expanded and reaffirmed the Habsburg family’s power in Europe.

The ruling emperor and empress, Charles VI and Elisabeth Christine, are seated underneath a canopy at the centre of the table, whereas the bride and groom are seated at the end of the table to the right. To the left are the emperor’s sister, Maria Magdalena, and his second-eldest daughter, Maria Anna. They are surrounded by courtiers, members of the aristocracy and persons of prominent military rank.