20" x 16" Oil on Canvas
This painting had been stored in a damp environment and was in poor condition. The paint surface had since dried out and began to flake off.
The paint surface was extremely delicate and had to be carefully handled to avoid further paint loss to the bottom left hand corner.
The painting had also had previous restoration work on the lower left hand corner which was badly colour matched.
The Painting had also suffered an attempted clean from an untrained hand which had seriously damaged the finish of the painting and also eroded some of the paint layer. This had been partially hidden by poor overpainting which would have to be removed.
From this picture you can see more clearly the area of paint loss and how the surface of the paint is forcing itself off the canvas.
To restore this painting we decided that it would be best to wax reline the canvas to avoid further paint loss and provide structural support to the oil painting.
The wax / resin reline is a traditional method of re-securing the paint surface to the canvas.
We then wax re-lined the canvas to a new piece of canvas on our vacuum table. This secured and re-attached the areas of loose paint making the picture once more stable.
Once the painting had come off the vacuum table it was was carefully cleaned to remove the dirt and grime that had been allowed to accumulate and also remove the area of over painting.
The paint loss areas were carefully filled over several layers and then painstakingly colour matched.
The final stage of the painting restoration was revarnishing, this was done in several thin layers to allow a protective layer to build. The Gloss varnish added the much needed depth to the badly neglected painting.
