Restoring a Royal Portrait Hidden behind a Mirror...

This little painting has been sat in my mysteries drawer for about six months. The frame is a little bit battered but I think it's more modern than the painting that sits inside it. It's a portrait, it's possibly around 400 years old, it's had quite a life and there is a little bit of a mystery attached to how it's got to this condition. On the back of the painting is a label that states This picture of Charles I was found as a back to a looking glass purchased by, and that's as much as we've got. So this painting was used as a backboard to a mirror and then whoever wrote that label has found it and rescued it I suppose to a degree and what we need to find out is the story behind this picture. And to do that we're going to have a look under UV first just to see what kind of condition this painting is in. So we can see there is a large scratch to the left hand side. There's also blemishes in that varnish layer. There's some areas of over paint and retouching present. The varnish looks quite thick but underneath that the paint layer looks quite thin. This is that scratch all the way through the surface of the painting. And then on the lace work as well we can see that there is quite a bit of detail there, but again we've got a fluorescent green thick varnish on there and lots of little surface marks and abrasions. But what concerns me about this panel is that the paint surface looks quite thin. There isn't an awful lot of paint on there apart from in the lace work. So I'm going to do a number of tests just to see how much this painting will clean and what kind of results we can get from it. Before I can do any of that though, here's that label. It would be lovely to have the whole label there. I imagine it's going to say who it was purchased by and where it was found and possibly a link to an artist, which would have been nice as well. But before I can do my tests, we need to remove it from this frame. I think this frame's probably a 20th century reproduction. It looks like a Dutch style, Dutch ripple style frame. Thank I don't know how long it's been in there looking from the shape. It could well have been in there for about, I don't know, 40 years maybe, 70s, 80s. you What it has got are these dreadful little very fasteners. Now there's a few different types of these. Some are just pure triangles. This is much. A little diamond point. I really don't like them. They're not the easiest thing to remove. You can catch yourself on them and these ones are especially tiny and they appear to be all the way around the painting. So I'm just going to try and lift them out and then I'll use my pliers just to give them a bit of a pull and remove from the frame. So with all those diamond points removed the panel releases and we get to have a look at the edges of this painting and see if it can tell us any secrets. So it's directly onto board it's not a canvas laid onto board you can see the paint edges here it's kind of a matte it looks like it's hung over a fire there's a little bit of crazing to that varnish on the top and a bit of an uneven surface the varnish layer is quite dry you can see the grain of the board here in raking light as well but the surface looks unusually matte as well So I do think... There's probably a number of different surface varnishes on this picture but that top one looks to have deteriorated and almost started to Thank separate or crumble in a way it's so dry. So I'm going to test and see what is happening with the surface of this painting. you So I've got two different solutions here one's a solvent based one very and one's a water-based one and the water-based one is going to test for tobacco Nicotine staining and it's going to come up yellow much. and you can see here straight away that the swab immediately picks up that dirty discoloured yellowness from the surface. So that indicates there's probably been in a smoky environment at some point in its history. And then the next swab is my solvent mixture and that's going to dissolve any varnish that's present. So it'll be a slightly different tone on the swab Wobb. but I can tell straight away that there is a varnish that's removing. I just want to look a little bit closer at that surface just to see what's going on. So you can see that it's a lot brighter there and those tones are kind of creamy yellow tones as well. So it's not going to come up bright, brilliant white. They are going to be kind of grey, almost a Naples yellow kind of tone. And then I'm going to do the same test on the skin tones as well. I always like to do this in the forehead. The paint surface is usually thicker here and again I'm going to do the aqueous and then this is the solvent based one as well. So I can see the varnish is collecting on the edge where I've cleaned and then you can see the flesh tones underneath as well. There is definitely two layers to this painting. The tobacco staining and then the varnish layer and you can see the difference there when the solvent dries. So there is going to be quite a cleaning there. So under UV now you can see the varnish that I've cleaned and the varnish that I've removed is that circle area. Now that should be the paint surface but I'm not 100% sure yet. I think there may be another layer on there as well. Right guys so the challenge with this painting is the thinness of that paint layer. We're on board um I can already see the paint surface is very thin when I'm taking that tobacco nicotine staining off it is changing the color but not as dramatically as I thought it would do and then the varnish layer again removes but the flesh tones underneath are quite pale and I think that's Down to the thinness of that paint layer. So I'm going to have to clean this very carefully. I'm going to remove the tobacco yellow staining first. Then I'll carefully remove that varnish layer. And hopefully keep that paint surface intact. That's the challenge with this one. Let's see how it goes. I find when you get a painting that's potentially 350 years old. You've got to be ready for a certain amount of unknown. Or, surprises, they're never quite what they seem. So at first glance you might think we've got an old painting on the panel and we will clean it and the colours will jump out and it'll be fabulous. Invariably what you find is that what you have Already there is what you end up with and that's something that I've learned through experience, cleaning and restoring a number of paintings from the 17th century and even earlier. So with this painting you've seen the tests we definitely know we're going to be able to remove that nicotine tobacco staining and you can see that it is lifting dramatically Particularly off there. Once we've done that across the whole painting that's when we can tackle with the solvent and remove the varnish as well but what does concern me is the thinness of the paint so you can just see his lips at the top of this shot here. He's already been cleaned at some point in the past we can see the grain of the wood coming through so that tells me that we have to be very careful with this painting and we have to treat it with the utmost respect. So as I'm cleaning here The swab colour is remaining similar across the whole surface so that tells me my solution is removing the same level of dirt and smoke staining across the whole picture. And as I clean the painting the swabs will get predominantly lighter as there's less of that surface to remove. So once I've gone across the whole painting my swab should be fairly pale. There will be a few little bits of residue on there but the swabs will get lighter as I go. And once they're completely clean or the very palest of yellow I know that I've cleaned the whole surface then and then that's when I can start to look at the solvent clean. So already you can see a lot more tone coming through this picture. You see a little bit more of the original pigments coming through. And the studio has been so dark recently I've had to have some extra lighting on here. You can tell that the autumn lights changed. And this is such a dark little portrait that the additional light was needed just to show what I was doing on the picture. So this now is the solvent clean. You'll be able to see the varnish removing and revealing those colours now. So it's a bit of a kind of grey, pale, Naples yellow kind of pigment tone. And a lot of this is done by feel as well, so you can feel the drag of the varnish as it begins to melt and the swab begins to lift it. So when you've gone over an area that's been cleaned, it feels a lot smoother, and then towards the edge of the area it'll drag and pull on your swab. So this lace work, I did initially think it was going to be coming a little bit more brighter or white, but I think these are just the tones that the artist has used. And the colours could have aged over time as well if this is over 300 years old. Some of those pigments will have changed, they will have warmed up, they will have darkened. And especially on a wooden support as well, I think the wood support changes the way the pigments behave as well. As the wood gets darker, so too does the painting. So I initially thought the sash would be coming blue like the order of the garter but it still seems to have a bit of a green tinge to it as I'm cleaning it as well so that might represent something else. I'm sure there's somebody out there that will be able to leave a comment and let me know the different meanings to the colours of the different sashes. So as I've taken off that varnish layer I'm getting a feel for the level of clean that I want to go for on this painting and I don't want to go too deep. What I'm finding is that you can see here in the lacework even though I've cleaned all the varnish off that layer with this solution there still does seem to be a slight discoloration of surface. Now I'm not entirely sure if that's another varnish layer, if that's just the way that the paint has reacted with the panel. Or if there's something else going on. But because the surface is so thin, I don't want to be overly aggressive in my cleaning solution. So I'm just going to carry on removing those first two layers. The nicotine staining is all gone. And then I'm going to remove this, I think it's a Damar varnish that's coming off. It seems to be fluorescing quite green and quite strong. If there is another layer on there, I think I'm going to leave that where it is. So those white elements there are little bits of the varnish where it's oxidized and separated. Sometimes when there's a mixture of solutions on there as well that can happen. What is nice about this portrait is that it's quite delicately painted around the mouth so we've got those Charles I whiskers, that mustache that's been captured really nicely and his mouth is really nicely rendered as well the way he's applied the pigment. The highlights in his eyes, those tones on his nose, there is a really nice painting here, I do just feel like it's been ravaged through time. Thank you for your time. Here you can see there's still elements of varnish fluorescing green where I need to remove, but they're on very soft brown pigment, so I don't want to do too much because I don't want to run the risk of removing some of that original paint, so I'm going to go very carefully on that area There's elements of his lace work that seem to remain a little bit yellow as well and again I don't want to go too strong on there and run the risk of removing original paint. Sometimes I like to get the painting off the easel and onto the bench and then clean in conjunction with the UV light so the UV light will show me where the varnish is still present and I can clean at the same time and make sure I'm removing all that. Damar varnish and leaving the paint surface intact and these are the multitude of swabs that I've used while cleaning this picture. I'm going to leave that there. I do think there may well be another historical varnish or paint layer on there but I don't want to go any further as the paint surface is so thin and I feel like I've already achieved so much by removing that tobacco staining and that first yellowed varnish. So to protect the work that I've done so far, before I do any retouching, I'm going to apply a barrier varnish to the panel. And this is a fully reversible hydrocarbon light fast varnish. It's going to re-saturate the painting and it's going to allow me to retouch and repair those damages to the left of his face. Now I could probably have gone further if I wanted to. I could have made a stronger solution for this painting. But just the way it's so delicately painted and I can see where it's been over cleaned in the past, I decided that it wasn't worth the risk to do that. So sometimes, as I said earlier, you need to respect the painting in front of you and listen to what it's telling you and in this instance it was telling me that you'd achieved enough with that clean and let's start putting things back together So with that varnish dry now it comes to one of my favourite parts of the restoration process and that's retouching. So I'm using my restoration chips and these are pigments that are bound in a resin again all fully reversible and these dry incredibly fast and as I'm applying them You'll see there. Solvent evaporate and the pigment remain on the painting. My aim is just to push back all these little damages and blemishes, anything that distracts your eye from enjoying viewing this painting. So obviously that big scratch on the left hand side needs to be pushed back and then I'll go around the rest of the painting looking at any other little areas that need attention. Sometimes you get it right first time, sometimes it needs to come off or you need to revisit it, but this is the fun part. I really enjoy this. I really enjoy just kind of looking at the painting, seeing what's distracting. If there's a tiny little bit missing and putting it back it's so satisfying and I feel like he's really coming together now. He really is looking more refined, he's looking more put together. I feel like he's got a little bit of his purpose back in this Those whiskers are just fabulous. I love those whiskers, the way they're kind of up. Oop. So the frame... Even though it's what I think is a 20th century reproduction it is quite nice. What is unusual is that gold edge there. I don't really like it so I'm going to push that back too and I'm going to match the existing surface. I don't think it really adds anything to the painting. If it had a gold inner slip or a gold liner then maybe. But having it on the outside edge of the frame, I think it just distracts you. So I'm going to use this trusted black chalkboard paint which dries to a lovely matte finish. I'm just going to recolour the edge of that frame and I think just by pushing it back and Applying this, it will just make that whole portrait sing out as well, so rather than having that gold distract you on the outside of the frame now, your eye will be just drawn into the central portrait and it will just make all those colours come alive. It will take a couple of coats to completely cover that gold. Thank you very much. But once it's dried it has a kind of matte finish, I can apply a bit of wax to that afterwards and match that satin finish on the rest of the frame. So while that's drying let me tell you a little bit about the painting and what we found out. So obviously we know it's a portrait of Charles I and if you put Charles I portrait into google you will get hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pictures. Some are outstanding, some are a little bit more provincial. This one stood out This looks a little bit like ours. It's got a provincial feel to it. Probably taken or copied from an established court painting. Now, I kind of get the impression that that's what's happened with our picture. I think it's probably taken from an engraving or a glimpse of another picture. I did find a very similar one in the sale room online. Same kind of head and shoulders, same kind of tackling of paint, same kind of board and very similar size to ours as well. Again, similar kind of damage to our painting. So There are a number of different versions out there. So these are two paintings that my client felt like the outfit was kind of borrowed from. So we've got Van Dyck on the left and Daniel Mytenson the right. And you can see the similarities in the lacework and the sash. And then we found another portrait online. So this was listed as Prince Rupert of the Rhine. And to me... It looks like it's done by the same hand, it's the same level of detail in the lacework, it's the same composition as ours. Unfortunately this portrait was unsigned as well so we're still no further on with finding out who the artist may be. The painting's now had a top coat of varnish which has dried and the work we've done on the frame has dried also so we're ready to put everything back together now. I've tried to leave everything as original as possible with this painting. I've tried to keep it showing its age. I'm just going to gently tape this back up as it was when it arrived and then put a couple of fixings in just to keep it nice and secure in that frame. It would have been nice if we could have found out a little bit more about the story of this painting and how it ended up in the back of that looking glass. Was it put there during the English Civil War? Was it a royalist that was hiding the portrait so that no one would know their loyalty? Or was it just put there because they needed a backing board for a mirror? I guess that's something that we'll never know with this portrait. But the fact that somebody put that label on there to tell that story, possibly over a hundred years ago, means that it was important how this painting was found. And then we can just maybe guess or imagine the history that this picture's had. I like to think that it was a royalist who had this portrait of the king and they had to hide it during the civil war or when Cromwell took to power and they kept it at the back of the mirror knowing it was there all the time until the royalty was put back on the throne. So after a little bit of a wax polish on that frame the picture is ready to be viewed now and we can look at the work that we've done with this picture. We removed all that tobacco yellow nicotine staining from the surface. We also removed that very thick damar varnish and we discovered that there was a very finely painted portrait underneath but with a very delicate thin paint layer. We didn't want to delve too deeply but we did enough just to reveal the detail of the dress. We revealed the sash and we got to know a little bit about the character of the artist. The fineness of those whiskers and that mouth and the glisten in his eyes, those are my favourite parts of this portrait and I think he looks a lot more respectable now and a lot more measured and a little less provincial. So let's just remind ourselves of how he arrived. So you can see here he's heavily discoloured with all that yellow on there, there's marks on his nose, there's that scratch, the frame's a little bit battered too around the facing of those rails and then fully cleaned and restored. We've done some work on that frame and I think it looks a lot more elegant now and less distracting and when you put them side by side Although it doesn't feel like a big difference, there is a difference between how the painting arrived and how it leaves the studio. Right guys, I hope you enjoyed that little portrait. It really is a lovely little thing, even though it's got that kind of thin paint surface. I'm looking at him now and he just looks really good. There's a lot more life to him now and he looks more like a measured portrait rather than, I don't know, something a little bit bit dowdy and discoloured. Who knows how it ended up in that mirror. I wish that label was still there, but you can't have everything. At least there's a little bit of a glimpse of a story and a bit of a background to what might have happened to this painting. I hope you're all well where you are. Thanks, as ever, for your support. All your likes and comments mean the world to me, and it's great to hear from so many people all around the world. I'd like to give a special hello to Kim and Kat who should be doing their homework. I believe they enjoy watching their channel while they're doing it so Kim and Kat I hope you're behaving and doing your homework. Weather in Manchester it's kind of mild this week we had storms the weekend which was ridiculous gale force winds and everywhere was absolutely soaking but now it's kind of mild and the Sun was spotted yesterday Although it is getting dark rather early now. Anyway Thanks for watching guys, and I will see you on the next one. Take care. Bye