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Restoration

What is the difference between the cleaning and restoration of an oil painting?

Cleaning means the grime and fly spots that adhered to the surface of the oil painting, along with any discoloured varnish, is removed. No repairs or retouching are carried out to the painting but a new protective coat of varnish is applied.

Restoration includes cleaning but will also repair any damage such as tears in the canvas, flaking paint, or weak canvas.

Retouching will be carefully colour matched so it will not look repaired.

Tears are usually repaired with a canvas patch bonded with a beeswax compound, filled and retouched. This means the patch can be removed in the future if further repairs are necessary.

Flaking paint and weak canvas is repaired by adding a new layer of canvas to support the old canvas using a beeswax compound. A full lining of the canvas includes removing all canvas outside the image area, whereas some jobs will only line the image area.

Restoration work may be carried out in house or by a specialised restorer depending on what work is required. This can take anything from 2 to 6 months depending on the complexity of the job.

Can old watercolours and antique engravings be cleaned?

Watercolours and antique engravings are usually cleaned in house.

Light dirty marks can be removed using a ground rubber cleaning pad.

Discoloured paper, water stains and foxing can all be removed in a chemical water bath. The paper then has to be washed to remove all traces of chemicals, then the paper is resized as after cleaning the paper becomes absorbent like blotting paper. The paper is then dried and flattened.

Antique engravings and maps can be hand coloured with artist grade watercolours.

Framers in the past sometimes fixed an image to a backing board and this needs to be removed before cleaning, this is a more complex and time consuming job as the backing board has to be removed from wet paper!

The services of a qualified paper conservator are also used for specialised cleaning of very valuable artwork.

Can old picture frames be repaired?

The rebuilding of antique frames can be undertaken. Generally this is far more expensive than having a new frame made. It also takes considerably longer as moulds may have to be made for casting replacement parts. Once the damage has been repaired, the whole frame has to be refinished to obtain a good final result - not just the damaged bits.

A cautionary note - only the newly repaired parts are guaranteed as old embellishments may still fall off if knocked.

If you would like a free appraisal of what work is necessary to return an old painting, watercolour, engraving or frame to its former glory, then please bring it into the gallery.

Generally the estimates given are the total cost of the work but sometimes unexpected problems can occur that will involve extra cost.