Daphne De Luca

Daphne De Luca is a Research Fellow and Teaching Contract Holder at the University of Urbino Carlo Bo, where she has been teaching Restoration since 2008 and serving as a Research Fellow since 2018. She is the Scientific Coordinator of the Restoration Laboratories for Canvas Paintings and Contemporary Art at the Urbino University Restoration School. Her work spans across the Department of Pure and Applied Sciences (DiSPeA), where she contributes to both academic instruction and practical conservation efforts.

Dr. De Luca holds multiple degrees in cultural heritage conservation and art history. She is a Cultural Heritage Restorer with degrees from the Central Institute for Restoration in Rome and the University of Tuscia. She also holds an Art History degree from Sapienza University of Rome and is currently a Doctoral Candidate in History of Artistic Techniques at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE/PSL) in Paris, in cotutelle with Sapienza University of Rome.

Dr. De Luca's research focuses on two interconnected fields: the history of artistic techniques and the development of new methodologies and high-performance materials for cultural heritage restoration. Her work in artistic techniques involves interpreting scientific data from investigation campaigns, structuring national and international research projects, and connecting analytical results to art historical contexts. She has led studies on the execution techniques of artworks by prominent artists including Crivelli, Barocci, Capogrossi, Rubens, Guttuso, and others. Her research on Capogrossi was selected in 2017 for access to the laboratories of the IPERIONCH.IT infrastructure.

In conservation and restoration, Dr. De Luca specializes in designing and implementing restoration interventions for panel paintings, canvas paintings, frescoes, stone materials, mosaics, and contemporary art artifacts. She emphasizes high scientific and technical quality, preferring innovative and high-performance new-generation materials and advanced methodologies in cleaning, elastic tensioning, filling, and retouching. Her research on Aquazol® products has led to new materials for composing fills suitable for covering gaps in easel paintings and for watercolor retouching, developed in collaboration with chemist Richard Wolbers and the University of Philadelphia.

Dr. De Luca is particularly specialized in the restoration of canvas paintings - a subject she has taught since 2008 at the Urbino University Restoration School - and specifically in the cleaning of both ancient and contemporary paintings. She has developed new systems for elastic tensioning of canvas paintings with springs, registering the TELAIODELUCA® brand in 2020. She is a member of an international research group created by renowned chemist Paolo Cremonesi, focusing on innovative cleaning systems for contemporary art artifacts.

With over fifty theses supervised on topics related to cultural heritage restoration and artistic techniques of both ancient and contemporary art, Dr. De Luca has made significant contributions to academic training in her field. From 2016 to 2020, she taught History of Artistic Techniques at Roma Tre University, which appointed her as an Expert in the history of ancient, medieval, and modern artistic techniques for the Master's program dedicated to art forgery.

Dr. De Luca directs the "Lineamenti di Conservazione e Restauro" series for Il Prato publishing house since 2011 and is a member of the editorial board of the journal "Progetto Restauro." She is a co-founder and scientific committee member of the new "Restauro" series (TAB Roma editions), for which she curated the first volume dedicated to Giuseppe Capogrossi and the second to Federico Barocci.

She is a founding member and former vice-president of the Association ORA (Organization of High-Training Restorers), a member of the Board of Directors of RSF (Restorers Without Borders), and president of CRUN (Committee of University Restorers). She is also a member of SISCA-University Consultation (Italian Society for the History of Art Criticism).