Restoring the Girl with Pearls NECKLACE – Part 1

But this painting is far from stable, the surface is fragile and the paint layer is at risk of loss, before any aesthetic work can begin, the structure must be secured. Pearls have long symbolized elegance and quite refinement in painting. One of the most iconic examples is Vermeer's girl with the pearl earring. Today I'm restoring another portrait where pearls once again take their place. So here we have the painting that I will be restoring. It's a beautiful portrait of a lady wearing this beautiful pearl necklace. So this reminds me of that beautiful painting of Vermeer, the girl with the pearl earring. So I would say that this lady is the girl with the pearl necklace. The painting apparently it's not in a very very bad condition, but there is some crackly in the painting. So I don't know if this painting is in risk to come off of the canvas, but I will have to check that out when I remove the painting out of the frame. The frame has a lot of parts that are not okay, so the frame will need some kind of new gesso and new arrangements so it stays in a better condition. But the portrait essentially is dirty, but it's also with a quite thick layer of varnish that already is oxidized, so the the colors are not as real as they are under the varnish. So this varnish needs to be removed and all the procedures of the restoration have to be followed. So here it is. And here we have the back of the painting. The canvas is not in a very... it's not in a bad condition. Apparently it's stable, so this is a good beginning. But I will have to, of course, I will have to take out the painting out of the frame. And there are these very strong nails. This was the system that was used years ago, so there was no better system apparently. But that's the first thing I'm going to do. Those nails look a little bit strong, or too strong. Let's see if these tools are enough, or if this asks for a stronger approach. Now apparently it's okay. Interesting, they applied some nails also here to block the keys. It's an interesting system that they used, so the the keys would not come out of the place. I actually never saw, but it's interesting that they do apply this system. And now that the nails are off, I can free the the painting out of its frame. And here it is. So here we have the the painting. Truly a very beautiful portrait. The pearls are really beautifully painted. I really don't like the way this paint is. Apparently it's with a heavy crackly, and I think that for my security I will have to apply a treatment that will glue back the the paint layer to the canvas, and also it will make it look a little bit more flat. This area here is the top of the painting, and it's very dirty, and before I apply the facing I'm just going to remove this dirt, and I will use also the the vacuum cleaner. And now I'm going to cut a little bit of Japanese paper. I think I'm going to cut it in this direction, it's better. Now that I have the paper already cut, I will apply the glue, and today I'm going to do in a different way than what I normally do. Today I'm just going to apply directly over the painting. So now I apply the washi kozo over it, and I apply one more layer of glue. I try to to remove these air bubbles with the brush, but after I will apply another procedure that normally will guarantee that everything will be without bubbles, although they don't play very, very. It's not a big problem if some of the bubbles stay. I left the facing to dry for several hours, so now it's completely dry, and protecting the the paint layer. And as you can see, there is this extra paper that I'm going to remove, because at this stage it's not making any function, and I'm going to remove the painting out of the stretching frame, so it's better that I remove. I'm going to remove with the scalpel that I have here. I want to show you something. You see this area here? This is a paper that was added to the painting after nailing the canvas to the stretching frame, and this, as you can see here, the nails are protected with this paper, so this paper is covering the area where the nails are. So what I'm going to do is that with some hot water that I'm going to try to take this paper out, so I can access to the nails without cutting the canvas, and normally this was applied with some rabbet skin glue, so normally it will be easy to remove the paper. To access to the nails, I do need to remove this paper. Normally this paper was glued, like I already said, with rabbet skin glue, so normally a little bit of warm water will activate the glue again, and normally it will be easy to remove it. So the water already had time to activate a little bit the glue, so I'm going to try to remove. As you can see here, it's very easy to see that the paper goes over the canvas, so normally it will go, yes, it will go also over the nails, because we cannot see the nails, and we can see the glue here. Yes, it's really, I can feel on my fingers that it's really a very concentrated rabbet skin glue. Wow! Unfortunately, the paper around the nail areas was not adhered with the same adhesive, so I needed to remove it manually, which means more work and more time. Well, I already removed the paper on the place where the nails are applied, and as you can see, there are a lot of nails, so I'm going to remove them now. I'm going to try to with this. Well, actually, I sincerely must say that I thought it would be more difficult, but they are coming out quite easily, so I hope I didn't miss any, but hopefully it will be okay. All the nails are out now, and this is what was out, the paper and the nails. I apply a little bit here. I see that the corners are the areas that maybe the glue did penetrate a little bit in a stronger way, so it's normal that it is a little bit harder to come out. These corners are a little bit difficult, but they come out well. It's very hard. The canvas here is really very hard to bend also, so I will have to apply a new treatment here also. Now the edges of the painting are free from the stretching frame, and I can release the painting from the wood. As normal, there is a lot of accumulated dirt. I will try to release the most part this way. So these residues now are free from the canvas, and now I can apply the vacuum cleaner and remove all these residues. So now the back of the painting is totally free of that dust and dirt, so I can advance to the next step. Anyway, for now, I'm just going to apply some pressure, heating pressure here on the sides, and just to have this a little bit flatter. I have this small iron that I do use to apply some heat on the edges of the canvas, so I can flatten them. Basically, I apply a little moisture to a piece of canvas placed over the edges, then I apply heat and let it cool down under gentle pressure with sandbags. And now that several hours passed, I can remove the weights, and I prepare the painting to receive the adhesive. The borders now are totally flat, and now the painting is ready to receive the adhesive. I prepared this adhesive that I'm going to apply now on the back of the canvas. This adhesive will penetrate until it reaches the paint layer. So I'm going to start to prepare the table. The first thing that I do is to apply this felt, and this felt has the function of observing the pressure that I'm going to do with the hot iron. Although the painting is very flat, there are small areas on the dress of the girl that do have some impasto, so this felt will protect that impasto. And also, I apply this layer of Malinx, and I apply the painting over the Malinx. I have another layer of Malinx under, and I have this the other layer of Malinx that was under, I take it out. So now the painting is flat and here, and I apply this layer of Malinx also over it, so the iron is not in direct contact with the painting. But also, when I apply the heating, I will use also this paper. So this paper has the function of absorbing again some of the pressure that I'm going to do with the hot iron. I'm going to use this iron, and this is a heavy iron. I have to control the temperature that I'm going to apply. It cannot go over 60. So this paper will also distribute the heat in a very smooth way, but it also absorbs a little bit of the pressure that I'm applying. The adhesive that you saw me apply before is a thermal adhesive, so it will be activated when I do apply this heating. So this procedure is with a hot iron, it's activating the adhesive that you saw me applying, and this is gluing back the paint layer to the canvas. And I remove the paper, still very warm, but while it cools down, I have this piece of plexiglass that I will lay down over the canvas, so it will make some weight over the canvas while it cools down. But I will also apply some more weights, and I apply these weights more, so it will stay like this several hours. And for today I'm going to pause the video here, so in the next episode I think I will be able to remove all this setup and start the cleaning of the painting. So if you stayed with me watching this video until now, thank you so much, that is good and that means a lot to me. Again I really want to thank to my older subscribers, but also to the new ones that are joining the channel, that are joining the community. You are very welcome, thank you so much. And I also want to thank you to those of you that do comment on my videos. I always love to read all the comments and I try to answer them as soon as I can. Thank you so much, it's wonderful to have this conversation and to have your feedback also, it's very important to me. I really think that we did what is the best for the painting right now, and I hope I can see you back on the next episode of this restoration. I want to wish you a wonderful week, and I really hope I can see you soon. Thank you again for watching, and I'll see you soon. Thank you, bye-bye, take care.