The Stunner

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And of course, her portrait is executed with the precision and care that we'd come to expect of an artist of this caliber. But it is not without its problems. Subtle paint loss throughout, an unfortunate texture in the background, and of course the entire painting is filthy, covered with a very heavy layer of grime and old varnish. But even under that, she is a stunner. To create something that can take one's breath away is a tall feat and can require years and years of practice to the point of mastery. And yes, in some pursuits that is totally acceptable and even the best way to achieve said outcome. But that's not always the case. And sometimes, it might be appropriate to find a faster way to stunning. And with Squarespace, you can. Squarespace calls it design intelligence. 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These are long and really overkill for what amounts to a relatively small and lightweight painting. It's certainly not the best way to do it, and we'll change it out later. With the painting removed from the frame, I can then begin removing the canvas from the stretcher. The canvas needs to be removed because there are several areas that have been dented, and there are some ripples in the canvas that we want to remove. These tacks are in here incredibly well. In fact, I believe they're probably rusted in place, and so my usual tack puller is not sufficient. I have to turn my attention to a pair of snips that I can get underneath the head and really work this tack out, and just like I thought, rusted. This was likely done when the wood was still green. The painting was stretched to wood that had a high moisture content, and that moisture content caused these steel nails or tacks to rust in place, making it that much more difficult to remove later on. Eventually, I do pull out as many of the nails as I can. Some broke off in place, and I'll have to dig those out of the support later on. But before I can remove the painting from the support, I need to go across and make sure that there are no leftover nails, tacks, or other fasteners that would hold them in place and crease the canvas even more. But once I'm satisfied that I have found all of them, and that the canvas is free from the stretcher, I can remove the support and place it aside. There is a lot of grime, dust, and dirt sitting behind this painting in between the stretcher and the canvas, and this causes the on the front. Because this is so wedged in, I'm using a bristle brush to break it up and loosen it before I come with my vacuum to suck it all up and get rid of it. This is the first step in cleaning the back of this canvas. With all of that removed, I can take a closer look at the canvas, and the first thing that I spot is a repair from the past, which indicates that this painting has been worked on. This is an old wax patch that presumably was put on because of some damage to the front of the painting, or structural damage to the original canvas. I can peel off the wax because it's brittle and hardened and very, very old, and then I can come with my scalpel and start shaving off some of the mass of the wax. I'm not going to use my scalpel to remove all of the wax. I will turn to solvents to do that because it's much more effective than using the scalpel. But thinning out the mass of the wax makes the solvents more effective, and it saves time and solvent exposure. Once I have saturated that area, I'll come back with the swabs and just start removing any remnants. The wax is still pretty tenacious, so I will come back with the scalpel, some more solvent, scalpel, some more solvent, as many times as necessary to remove all of that residue. Once that's gone, I can turn my attention to other areas of the canvas. Because I'm going to be taking this canvas and placing it on the hot table, I need to remove all of these areas where the ground that the artist applied oozed through the canvas weave, because these little pieces of ground will become indentations when I perform the treatment on the hot table. So, all of them have to be removed. I want the canvas, on the back at least, to be completely smooth and free of anything that could create a divot or a dent. I'll end up making this pass across the entire back of the canvas, lightly scraping, making sure that anything that protrudes outward is removed. And then, once I'm satisfied that I have got all of them off, I can take this canvas back to the hot table and prepare it for its vapor treatment. I've decided to do this face down. This painting is smooth. There is no buildup of impasto. And even though I've removed all of those little pieces of ground and the canvas slubs, I don't want to take the chance that even the canvas weave creates a texture on the front of the painting. So, I'm doing it face down, which is really not all that different than doing it the normal way, except that it's face down and it's sandwiched in between two layers of blotter paper. One protecting the face from the surface of the hot table, and two on the back to absorb any ambient moisture. Once the table is brought up to temperature and the air removed with the vacuum pump, we can see that the surface of the blotter paper is picking up some of that canvas surface. And that's precisely why I did it face down, so that any of that texture and surface would protrude backwards instead of forward onto the canvas's face. Once it's all dry and cooled, I can remove it and place it under weights for a couple of days and let it acclimatize to the studio's relative humidity, which is about 45 to 48 percent. Resting underneath these weights with a piece of felt on top will ensure that the canvas doesn't distort as the humidity that's trapped in the canvas escapes. Once I'm satisfied that the painting has rested enough, sometimes it's a day or two, sometimes it's five or six, I can come back and remove it from the weights. And we can see that there is no distortion, which is precisely why we put it under weights anytime we do a treatment on the hot table. More importantly, none of the texture of the canvas or the ground or the canvas slubs was projected to the face of the painting, and the painting's face is all smooth. But it is now time for cleaning. Because this painting has a heavy layer of accumulated particulate and surface grime, I'm going to clean that off using a neutral organic soap that we mix in the studio. This step is critically important because this layer of surface grime would prevent the solvents that I will use to remove the varnish from accessing that varnish. This surface grime stands as a barrier layer and the removal of the varnish could be complicated or compromised if this isn't removed. Using a bristle brush, applying the neutral organic soap, and then agitating a little bit, coming back and removing it with cotton balls, this process is relatively simple and straightforward. But we can see the soap going on white and being removed brown, just how much grime is removed. Now at this point, if the client decided they wanted to keep the old varnish, our work would be mostly done. The grime would be removed and the varnish would remain. But this isn't the original varnish. We know this painting has been conserved in the past because of the patch on the back, and my client really wants it cleaned fully. Surface grime and old varnish. So now we get to what is lying underneath this heavy discolored yellowed layer of old natural resin varnish. And if early tests are any indication, it's going to be something pretty spectacular. The solvent will break down the varnish and the swab will pick it up. And you can see with just a few swipes just how different this painting really is. In fact, the yellow is not. That is all the varnish. The cloth is white. And when it's removed, we get a smoother, cleaner version of the painting. Not only because the color is gone, but because the textural difference of this thick varnish layer has been removed and we can see the brushwork a little bit better. So I will continue on working in small sections to remove this old discolored varnish and reveal what is underneath. What the artist wanted us to see. A glorious painting filled with color, delicacy, and energy. With the painting cleaned, and wow what a transformation that was, it is now time to address the tear in the canvas. This is a pretty clean tear and unfortunately it goes vertical and across the edge of the canvas. So it's a little bit more difficult to repair than something that would be more jagged and in the center of the canvas. I'm applying a conservation grade adhesive to this area of the tear or slice and I'm allowing it to sit for a little bit, seep in. Then I'm going to take strands of Belgian linen that I have cut and lay them perpendicularly across this tear, much like a doctor would use sutures or a butterfly strip. This process called bridging is intended to hold this together and hold it down. This canvas is not under extreme tension so it's not going to open up, but these will continue to make sure that it stays flat and it doesn't open up and tent in the future. Once I've applied the little strands, I'll come back with some more adhesive, paint them fully, and then align them using a little dental tool. Then once I'm satisfied with how everything looks and where all the supports are, I'll place a piece of siliconized film on top so that nothing sticks to it, a piece of felt to compensate for the textural difference, and wait to press it while it dries. A day later I can come back and remove the felt and I can see just how smooth and how stable it is. This is precisely what we wanted out of this treatment. This tear has now been structurally stabilized, but the structural work doesn't stop with just that tear. We need to add some more integrity to this tacking edge which is thin and has many pull-throughs where the tacks were. So to do this we're doing a treatment called a strip lining. Rather than adhering a whole new canvas to the back of this painting, which would be overkill and unnecessary, we're simply adding new canvas to the tacking edge so that when we stretch this painting there is more meat or material for the tack to hold onto and the new canvas takes the load off of the original canvas, providing it with structural support. Once a conservation grade adhesive film has been ironed onto the canvas, I can then iron on the tacking edge to the original canvas. This adhesive film is a thermoplastic adhesive film, so it melts under heat and then bonds when it dries and cools. This adhesive film can also be removed with solvents, but in this case that's not applicable. Once all of the tacking edges have received their strip lining, we can go ahead and start stretching this painting to the support. The support was examined and there were no areas of damage. It was cleaned and prepared. It was squared up so that it would fit into the frame, and then the canvas was placed on the support and squared up and fitted to where I'd like it to be, and then it's secured using steel sterilized upholstery tacks. I like using tacks because instead of creating two holes and a crease like a staple would, the tack creates one small hole. They're also easier to remove in the future and they are a traditional way of securing paintings to supports, and sometimes there are technological advances that can be made, and sometimes the tried and true methods are what we like. So working from the center outwards, I will use my pulling pliers to add tension to this canvas, making sure that there's no slack or ripples. If there are, I can pull them out towards the corners where they can be dealt with during the keying process. The corners are overlapped and a gusset is created to give more support to an area that often is worn through and sees a higher tension due to keying. A couple of tacks, and then this painting is ready for the back to be finished. I'll cut off the remaining canvas, and then once all of that has been removed, I can fold over the remnants of the tacking edge and secure it in place with some lighter weight smaller steel tacks. I use smaller tacks because these are just holding this canvas in place. There's really no tension on them, so they don't need to be as large as the ones I used to secure the canvas to the stretcher support. Yes, it is true that I could simply make the tacking edges smaller so that I didn't have as much material, or just cut them off, but this is a stylistic choice that I have chosen to make, and I like it, and other people are free to do as they like in their studios, but this is how I'll do it. Once the painting has been fully stretched, I can now key it out. Because this is a stretcher and the joints are free-floating, not glued or nailed in place, tapping in these little triangular keys into the mortises will allow me to expand this support and add a little bit of tension to this canvas, compensating for any slack that may have developed. Once the keys are in place, a little bit of fishing line and another tack will hold them in place so that they're never lost, and they don't fall between the canvas and the stretcher, creating a dent. It's now that I can start filling in some of those losses. We are fortunate here that this painting has almost no paint loss, but even those small areas where the paint has been lost, particularly in this tear, need to be filled in with something that can receive the retouching. If this step is skipped, the retouching paints, while maybe color accurate, will be texturally different and we will see the repairs. Once the fill-in material has dried, I can remove the remnants with a swab. We don't want the fill-in material on the original paint, in fact, we just want it in the areas where the paint is missing. This is not to be covering any of the original, we just want as minimal as possible. So we'll go over and remove as much as we can, sometimes two or three times, to make sure that only the areas of paint loss are filled in. Again, because this is a relatively sound painting with very little paint loss, this step is very easy and doesn't take a long time. Because there is relatively little retouching, I am foregoing the traditional step of applying one thicker coat of resin before retouching, and I'm applying the varnish directly on the painting. The varnish will act as the isolation layer, it will saturate the colors, and then I will retouch on top of this varnish with my conservation paints. This is an approach that I would not take if the painting had a lot of retouching, but because there's very, very little, only a few spots that need dots of color, I can take this lighter approach. And now, on to retouching. Even though this painting has very little damage and the areas of loss are very, very tiny, the retouching here is almost more high stakes than if it were, let's say, an abstract expressionist painting, five feet by eight feet, with a baseball-sized hole in the middle. There is very little margin of error here. The detail with which the artist painted this painting requires close examination by the viewer, and so if my retouching isn't as precise as the original, it's going to betray the damage, and we don't want that. So even though the damage here is small, it still takes a lot of time, and it's very high stakes. I want to make sure that I'm doing as good of a job as the artist did when they created it, and that means trying to replicate some of these absolutely tiny little brush strokes. The paints that we use for retouching are not as forgiving as the oil paints that the artist used, so here it's just a little bit more complicated to be as precise. Now, in her face, on her eyebrow, there were some areas of damage, but throughout, there looks to be staining, maybe fly specks or something else that happened. We tried to clean those off, but ultimately, we weren't successful, and rather than push the issue and potentially damage the painting, we decided that a course of light retouching would be the appropriate response to eliminating these distractions. So mixing the colors and going very carefully and just dotting on all of these dark spots, we can remove them and unify her face, make her look smoother and free from all of this acquired damage. The artist didn't want this here, and so we're trying to honor his work and remove it. Perhaps this is the conservation equivalent of a facelift, taking off years and years of age while being true to the sitter. Before the painting can go back in the frame, we have a little bit of work to do. The client asked us to repair a missing corner and to clean it because it's just as grimy as the painting. The first thing that I'm doing is taking some two-part silicone and mixing it together so that I can create a mold of the original detail. I'm going to use this later to create a cast and then use that to replace the missing piece. Once that silicone has dried, I can lift it off and we can see we have a very accurate impression of that ornamentation. The next step is to create a positive from this negative, so I'll fill a cup with water, add some plaster of paris, mix it up, add some more plaster of paris, mix that up, add a little bit more plaster of paris, mix it up, and then dump the whole thing in because I chose the right amount in the first place. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, which is why we go slow. Then into this silicone mold, I will pour this plaster. I've used some clay on the edges so that the plaster doesn't pour out and make a mess. I'll smooth it out, add a little bit more, and then I'll tap the sides to release any air bubbles. While the plaster is drying, I will use my chisel to remove the previous repair done on this frame. It appears that gold paint was just applied where the losses were to conceal it, but I want a clean and smooth surface that will be receptive to the fill-in piece that I'm making. Once that's done, I can start cleaning this frame, and I'm using a combination of liquid cleaners here. I've made some tests on the frame, determined which ones are safe, and that's what I'm going to be using. This frame is a combination of both painted gold and gold leaf, and while the painted gold is much more robust, the gold leaf is much more delicate, and I have to steer clear of harsher cleaners that would be maybe more effective at removing some of the discoloration. But even with just a mild cleaner and a q-tip, we can see just how transformative it really is. This frame was kind of grimy, dusty, and dirty, and cleaning off all of that reveals a much brighter frame. Now, I talked with my client about how far they wanted to go. This frame is still covered in lots of little fly specks. All those little black and brown dots are fly poop, and we talked about removing them, but that would likely require stripping this frame down and regilding it, which was just more than my client had the stomach to bear. Once the plaster is dried, I can remove it from the silicone, and we can see just how accurate the mold really is. That's one of the great things about the silicone, is that it captures all the detail and doesn't stick to anything. Now comes the fun and tedious process of fitting this large piece of plaster into a very, very little hole. So, I'm going to make a couple of marks for where I think I need to trim off this plaster. These are rough and oversized, and then using a Japanese saw, I will start cutting the plaster. I'm using a Japanese saw here because it has a very thin blade, the kerf, and all of the teeth are pointed inward as opposed to being flayed outward, so it removes much less material. Now, obviously, this isn't a big deal when I'm just cutting plaster, but this is why I prefer Japanese saws to Western saws. Now, getting this oversized chunk into that little recess is a process of simply testing, and then removing, and then testing, and then removing, and doing it over and over and over again. At first, removing a lot of material, and then removing less as we get to a closer fit. And the tool of choice, for me at least, is a rasp. It allows me to remove a lot of material quickly, and also to be very delicate when I need to be. And like I said, this is a slow process, a lot of back and forth and back and forth. But eventually, it does fit, and that looks pretty good. I'm using a conservation adhesive here on both surfaces, the negative and the positive. Because the plaster is very porous, it will draw out a lot of the moisture in the adhesive, so having a healthy thick layer on both sides makes sure that the adhesive isn't dried out before it cures. And then, I can take some fill-in material and fill in the gaps. Even though I did a good job of matching this inlay to the void, there are still little gaps. Once that's dry, I'll come with a cotton swab and remove some of the excess, and then continue shaping with some scalpel and sandpaper. Then, I'll use some two-part epoxy putty to create the final little piece here, the overlay on the corner. And then, I can begin retouching. Using a combination of regular retouching paints and metallic paints, I'll simply paint over the losses. And I've chosen to use paint instead of gilding because this was originally a painted surface, and because gilding would be too time consuming, too costly, and probably wouldn't match as well. After adjusting the color, putting on some glazes, and then adding some fly specks, the best part of this process, I think we are done. I'll go around the entire frame to make sure that any other areas of loss are retouched accordingly so that they don't become distractions. And then, I'm all done. If when this painting arrived, it was a The mastery of the artist is on full display. The softness of the blanket, the crispness of her satin shirt, are all communicated clearly and with feeling. The blanket has revealed blues that were completely obscured, and the colors are rich and vibrant. The delicate lacework is even more precious now that we can see it, free from yellowing. The way the light reflects on the metallic surfaces of her chain is stunning, to say nothing of the way the jewels hold that light. And of course, the woman herself, free from yellowing and all of those dark spots, is stunning. And her expression captures our attention with a softness and clarity that was otherwise previously obfuscated. The frame is now as radiant as the portrait. With the grime removed, the gold shines, and the loss filled in and retouched, we no longer have anything that will distract from its beauty. While I am always happy to return a painting to my clients, to see the joy and excitement on their faces, saying goodbye to this painting was bittersweet. The time I spent with it was mesmerizing, and I was completely enthralled by this stunner.