Caring for Old Master Paintings
An Antwerp-born artist who introduced grand Flemish portraitist style of vivid precision to the English court in 1616, Paul van Somer (c. 1577/8–1622). Yet behind his Portrait of a Lady, panel painting, a structural weakness was taking place. A rigid, fixed timber frame on the reverse panel support warped over time, inhibiting the natural movement […]
Gallery Varnish and Carel Pietersz. Fabritius
Used extensively in nineteenth-century English and Irish art museums. Its nature and application to restored paintings is commented on in some detail in the classical, The Chemistry of paints and Painting*, by Sir Arthur Church a London National Gallery curator of the nineteenth century. The formula was is a mixture of Stand Oil (boiled linseed […]