On the Mend: Part III

An update on the conservation of Woman with a Floral Wreath 

Last post, I described mending the tear, lining the canvas for support. Now finally I can give you an after treatment image.

Before Treatment                                     After Treatment

 To recreate the surface of the original paint where there was lost material, the areas of missing paint were filled with a putty-like material similar to the original ground, and the original surface texture was replicated using very fine tools. The fill was carefully retouched to match the surrounding original paint with a stable resin, which mimics oil paint well, and importantly has good aging properties. The resin remains fully reversible in solvents which don’t affect the original work should anyone wish to remove the retouching in the future. All this information is carefully documented.

(1) Detail of the tear before treatment (2) Detail of the tear after filling with white putty-like material (3) Detail of the tear after treatment.

The tear is in quite a challenging area with lots of flat colour. This can be more challenging than areas with a lot of detail. With a lot of patience and with the help of optivisors the project was finished. I look forward to seeing her on the Gallery wall soon.

– Genevieve Silvester, Paintings Conservation volunteer

On the Mend: Part II

An update on the conservation of Woman with a Floral Wreath 

Before treatment began

Last week I described how the painting had been removed from its old stretcher and the excess wax carefully removed. The next steps in the treatment plan are to mend the tear in the canvas before lining the canvas for support and to enable re-stretching before retouching the loss so it is no longer a focal point.

Mending the tear 

The fibres around the tear were broken and in disarray and some were sitting on the wrong side of the canvas covering original paint. To have any hope of getting a flat surface (crucial for achieving a perfect retouching) and recovering the hidden original paint meant hours under the microscope, removing old fill and carefully placing the fibres back into their original positions. These were supported by the addition of a few new threads where threads had been broken or were missing.

1. Under the microscope the mess of matted fibres embedded in the white fill is apparent  2. Looking at the same area with transmitted light, after the fill was removed and the fibres were aligned and new fibres were being added to fill in gaps. 

This highly delicate work can only be achieved under magnification.

Filling and lining 

The old losses were then filled and the painting was lined onto a new lining canvas using a vacuum table and with temperature control. After lining, the painting could be stretched onto a new stretcher.

Lining the painting

1. During lining the painting is under vacuum 2. The painting is stretched and ready for retouching

Varnishing and retouching 

The final stages of the treatment are the varnishing and mimetic retouching which aims to make the new repair invisible to the viewer.

Further research

Before a treatment begins, the painting is subjected to a thorough examination, and throughout the conservation process the conservator naturally gains a pretty intimate knowledge of a painting. Examination under magnification reveals just how the painting was made, identifying pigments, revealing the build-up of paint layers and changes since execution. Occasionally samples of paint can be taken and looking at these under strong magnification can reveal the painting’s composition. Two samples were taken from Woman with a Floral Wreath using a method shared in a previous post.

These samples shed light on how the ground was applied – unusually, in three distinct and separate layers.

A tiny sample of paint from the flesh tones of Woman with a Floral Wreath. The upper layer of paint shows a mixture of red, blue, yellow, black and white pigments used to create an area of flesh in shade. The bulk of the sample is three layers of white ground. 

The information gained from these will hopefully make it possible to make an informed estimate of the origin of the canvas. It is hoped that this research into provenance through technical examination will be continued after the treatment is complete. The discovery of French newsprint on the old stretcher, the ground structure and identification of pigments are all great leads for further research on the provenance of this painting.

Fragments of newsprint on the old stretcher

Please check back later for further exciting developments, and to see the painting after the treatment is complete!

– Genevieve Silvester, Paintings Conservation volunteer

On the Mend

The conservation of Woman with a Floral Wreath from the collection of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki.
 

Before treatment: the discolouration of old overpaint over a large tear in the lower right of the painting is very distracting.

Probably late 18th century, Woman with a Floral Wreath is a copy of the work of Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725–1805). Scarred by an old tear in the lower right of the canvas – which had become raised and discoloured – our painting has lingered for a number of years in storage awaiting conservation treatment.

First steps

The impetus for treatment centred on that tear. The edges had begun to lift and the retouching was significantly discoloured, no longer integrated with the surrounding original paint. To improve the repair, the old retouching and fill needed to be removed.

But, to complicate matters, the painting was wax-resin lined (a second canvas is adhered to the original) some time ago, but the adhesion had begun to fail. Unfortunately the adhesive was applied unevenly which caused deformations in the original canvas. To remove these, the two needed to be separated and the glue removed. This also allows realignment of the fibres in the tear which would help ensure an almost invisible repair.

Removal of the lining

To protect the surface of the painting, a sheet of strong but flexible tissue paper was adhered to the surface.

Applying facing tissue

The stretcher and lining canvas were then removed. It was exciting to discover newsprint in French still adhered to the stretcher giving further clues to the painting’s provenance. The thick layer of wax resin adhesive was removed as far as possible. After which the painting regained much more flexibility and the deformations relaxed back into plane.

1. Removing the old stretcher  2. The lining canvas, made from cotton duck 3. The original canvas, with a layer of thick uneven wax-resin

Removal of the varnish 

To support the painting during varnish removal and while mending the tear, it was temporarily adhered to a polyester fabric around the perimeter. This was attached to a strainer, allowing safe handling, access to front and back, and air circulation during varnish removal.

The back of the painting made accessible while attached to a temporary strainer during treatment.

A film of discoloured varnish and much of the overpaint was removed, revealing the subtle tonal modelling of the painting.

Halfway through varnish removal, the left side still has a layer of yellowed varnish.

About me

A kiwi paintings conservator, fresh from training and working in Europe, I was looking to gain experience with fellow New Zealand conservators when the chance to be involved in this project arose and I have been preparing this French beauty for a return to the gallery wall.

In my next entry I hope to show the process of repairing the canvas and lining and retouching, and maybe dabble with some technical examination results. Check back soon!

– Genevieve Silvester, Paintings Conservation volunteer

Art Surgeons

In the documentary The Art Surgeon, former Auckland Art Gallery conservator Leslie Lloyd takes us through the process of treating a painting. He looks very much the mad scientist in his white lab coat, with syringe and bottles of coloured chemicals. The patient – the painting – is fully sedated. It has been cut from the stretcher, canvas removed thread by thread, impregnated with wax-resin and lined onto a new support. Next is the cleaning, where everything will be revealed. The point that Lloyd is trying to make – in a rather theatrical fashion – is that his work was more than just fixing stuff. It requires expert knowledge and is highly skilled.

The Auckland City Art Gallery was the first art gallery or museum in the New Zealand to have a conservator and Lloyd was employed by Director, Peter Tomory, as ‘Restorer’ in 1956. The term conservator is more commonly used today, as the work involves both preservation and restoration. Internationally people have been restoring paintings since the 17th century, but the development of a theoretical and scientific basis for conservation is a modern concept, and relatively recent in Lloyd’s time. Before the late 19th century, permanent alterations as well as completions 'in style', were not clearly distinguished from conservation.

We are told in the documentary that Lloyd used both his training at the Victoria & Albert Museum and his experience as a surgeon’s assistant in the Second World War in his role at the gallery. Certainly his treatments appear fairly drastic to conservators today. Cutting and removing supporting layers is at odds with contemporary practice, where every effort is made to retain original material and keep treatments reversible. These days, conservation training is specialised and at tertiary level, and conservators abide by a code of ethics set by professional organisations.

Conservation at the Gallery is still going strong, nearly 60 years later. Now there are five conservation positions (paintings, works on paper and objects) and a part-time conservation assistant. We still use an operating microscope purchased by Lloyd in 1968, seen here in use by Kate Woodgate Jones in 1978. From the very beginning, Lloyd steered conservation in a commercial direction taking on work from external clients, which is virtually unheard of in museum circles internationally. The legacy has been an ongoing challenge as we try and balance income generation with work on the collection. Changing artistic priorities and a realisation that decisions cannot be made in isolation, have had a huge effect on the approach taken by conservators, as well as an expectation that conservators can contribute to original knowledge about the works of art.

In June this year, Conservation Services at the Auckland Art Gallery was renamed the Conservation Research Centre, in recognition of the amount of original research undertaken by the department. Conservation research informs the care and treatment of the artworks, so includes information about materials and techniques, history and approaches. It can be in the form of a general investigation into technique, which is behind the conservation exhibition Modern Paints Aotearoa; or it can be historical and technical research required to carry out a treatment, such as The Mocking of Christ by 17th-century engraver, François Langot; and finally it can be the type of research necessary to prevent damage through preventive conservation, such as the Mayo internship project into the time-based media collections. The conservators will continue to provide services to the public and other museums for the time being, but the change in name indicates how much more important research and treatment on the collection is for the future.

A newspaper clipping from 2001 shows a google-eyed conservator (me) looking out over painting. Things haven’t changed that much since the Art Surgeon, and we are still hiding behind our props, but with any luck the new name, Conservation Research Centre, will stick!

– Principal Conservator, Sarah Hillary