The Craft of Reversal - Conserving Prince George? - Episode 2

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[Music]

in part two of this three-part series

focusing on the conservation of this

rather large and regal portrait we begin

the reversal process

and that is we take all of the

information that we gathered in episode

one

everything about the surface coating the

varnish

the adhesives use the structural issues

and we take that information

and we start acting on it

the first thing that i need to do is

remove the painting from the stretcher

support

and that means that i have to remove all

10 million 485

321 and a half staples

i have this nifty little tool that

allows me to pull them a bit faster

than if i were using a screwdriver or a

pallet knife

but it's still a tedious process and

that's one of the reasons why i'm so how

should we say

unfond of staples the ease with which

somebody can shoot off a thousand

staples

is just baffling and it often leads to

an excessive number being used

for no benefit whatsoever

it's not as if more staples is more

better each staple makes two

holes in the canvas in addition the

horizontal bar that connects those two

studs can create a crease or a cut in

the canvas

and so the staple can actually do more

damage

than his benefit now as much as i

dislike staples

they are actually not the worst thing in

the world

i know that may come as a surprise

because i often rant and rave about

staples

but in my long career of doing this i

have seen paintings secured to

stretchers with

glue with silicone adhesive with screws

with ring shank nails i've seen

just about everything and so while

staples are frustrating

they are at least reversible and

removable

yes it's a pain but imagine scraping off

silicone adhesive from the back of a

canvas

that's a whole nother level of masochism

but even the process of removing these

staples as many as they

are is instructive because i'm starting

to learn a little bit more about this

canvas

and just how brittle it really is you

see

this canvas was lined and i suspect that

it was lined for some damage but also

to address the fact that it's very very

thin and probably was

verging on the edge of decomposing now

i could probably deduce this from any

other point but

having an up close personal experience

with the actual tacking edge

and removing all of these staples really

puts the point

on just how fragile this canvas is

i have a rubber band ball that my father

started back in 19078 or so

and at this point it is almost the size

of a basketball

and i keep adding to it and maybe maybe

i should start a staple ball and see how

big that grows in the next

20 years maybe see if my kids will want

that one day

who knows and now with all of those

staples finally removed

i can take the stretcher off of the

canvas i'm going to be careful here

because

a i don't know if i've caught all those

staples and i don't want one of them to

hang up

but also i mentioned that this canvas is

pretty brittle and i'm going to take my

time just to make sure that it doesn't

get any unnecessary stress

so i'm going to peel back this lining

canvas and this lining canvas

is heavily saturated with wax making it

fairly flexible

now i'm not concerned if the lining

canvas gets damaged i'm just concerned

about the original canvas

now once i'm confident that nothing is

stuck and there's no hidden fasteners

i can lift up that stretcher and remove

it from the painting

and it's easier to lift the stretcher

out of the painting than it is to lift

the painting off of the stretcher

see that the canvas didn't really move

at all

now i'll set the stretcher aside and i

don't have anything to do on it right

now

but i will later when i come back to it

at this point i'm going to peel back the

corner just to see

a little bit about the linings and to my

surprise

and actually as a great turn of events

it turns out that this painting doesn't

have

two linings what it has is one lining

over a strip lining and a strip lining

is just where the edge has been lined

that little white strip of fabric is

just to reinforce

the tacking edge and so it looks like

during the last conservation

that old work wasn't removed it was

simply

worked over and the whole painting

including the strip lining

was lined to this new canvas not a

practice that i would encourage or

recommend

but it is certainly better than what i

had expected

of having to remove two full linings now

it does throw a little wrench in the

system because the procedure procedures

and orders that i thought i was going to

take

have to be modified initially i was

going to remove these linings after

facing the painting

but now knowing that there's just one

lining i can change up how i'm going to

approach it

and so i'm going to start cleaning the

painting first

now in episode 1 i determined that there

really wasn't much surface crime on this

painting at all

and so i didn't need to do a surface

grime removal i could just go right

ahead

and start removing the varnish

and i'm starting in the armor because

there's a high concentration of white

in that area of the painting and because

i know precisely

what solvent and what ratio will work on

this area because i made a test there

i also want to see just how dramatic the

transformation is going to be

and well i'm pretty sure you do too

so as i expose the old varnish to the

solvent

i can not only feel it swelling up and

getting sticky

but i can hear it change when i roll the

swab

over an area of varnish it's very smooth

and quiet

and as the varnish lifts off and i get

down to the original paint layer

it becomes louder and sounds a little

bit more

abrasive or scratchy

and with one of his arms cleaned we can

see just

how yellow that old varnish is

and in fact as i'm working on this

painting

i suspect that there's not one layer of

varnish but multiple layers

it seems that whoever worked on this

painting last just

didn't take the old varnish off they

left it on when they did the lining

which is why

it was compressed or ultra smooth as i

mentioned in the first episode

and then they simply varnished over it

probably to give it a

shinier or refreshed appearance again

not anything that i would recommend and

really a measure

of sloppy work and as i continue with

the cleaning process

it's amazing what reveals itself we can

see

that the sitter's true skin tone is not

so jaundiced he's actually pretty

healthy looking

we can also see all of these beautiful

colors come to the fore

in addition all of the delicacy of the

brushwork

can now manifest itself and the talent

of the artists

can become prominent and that's really

what the cleaning process is all about

revealing the work of the artist the

hand of the artist

revealing the sitter and their

personality so in some ways

the cleaning process is about revelation

and showing the truth of the artist the

sitter

and the painting and i don't think that

there would ever be a case where i would

argue that concealing

something would be of benefit to anybody

with the painting

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julian and as i continue cleaning

this painting particularly the areas of

white and highlight

i'm amazed at not just how dirty and

yellow the painting was

but how flat it was you see there was

this weird

grid-like texture all over the entire

painting as a result of multiple

layers of varnish being built up and

with that removed we can start to see

the delicacy of the brush work

the color and the volume being created

and that's really the magic

of any artist is taking something

two-dimensional

canvas and paint and creating

three-dimensional volume and space out

of it

and discolored varnish and surface grime

can flatten that space

they can remove the complexities of the

color

and they can make it seem lifeless

and so now as i finish up his collar

i've gathered a lot of information about

this varnish and cleaning this painting

and i'm ready to tackle what is arguably

the most important part

the face now cleaning the face

is always an exciting prospect because

we're actually gonna see

what this sitter looked like we're gonna

see the drama

in his expression and see how the artist

captured it

and having cleaned thousands upon

thousands of paintings

i have a pretty good sense of what i'm

looking at through the varnish

i can see this discolored paint and have

a pretty good idea

of what it's going to look like after

it's clean but

i will tell you every time i do it it's

still exciting

i still get a great kick out of seeing

these beautiful skin tones these

highlights these

shadows come to life painting faces is

hard just about anybody can paint one

but to capture an expression

is truly truly difficult and so

seeing that expression come to life is

really really exciting

now one thing that i am noticing when i

work on this

face is that it is remarkably similar to

the rest of the painting

now i mentioned in episode 1 that thomas

murray was a

face painter that is he often painted

the face

after his studio or assistance painted

the rest of the painting

he gave them the grunt work and he took

all of the fun stuff for himself

i don't blame him there are many days

when i don't want to sweep the floor in

the studio and i wish i could just farm

that out but

that's a whole other story anyhow

what i am seeing is the application of

paint

the brushwork the color

the whole gestalt of this painting

isn't really different from the rest of

the painting

i would have come to expect that the

face would have been painted

in a manner that was dissimilar to the

rest of the work

and i'm not finding that which is

interesting

and it either leads me to believe that

murray and his studio were so in sync

that there is no perceptible difference

or

maybe murray painted this whole painting

himself or maybe murray didn't paint

this painting at all

i don't know but it's something that has

been nagging me since i started working

on this face

now one of the other things that we've

revealed is a pretty nasty tear

right on his cheek going up into his eye

now i saw some of this retouching when i

did the blacklight examination

but i didn't realize that it was this

big that old varnish was making it

really hard for the black light to

penetrate

and reveal some of that old retouching

so

this unlike the surprise of

finding only an edge lining instead of

two linings

is not welcome this is an unfortunate

revelation

but it's not gonna throw me i can deal

with that later on

what i need to do now is scrape off some

of these little areas where

there is residue of surface grime or old

varnish

that just didn't come off with the

solvent and i don't want to keep

scrubbing this painting with the solvent

because i

don't feel that there's going to be

anything gained from exposing this paint

to more solvent you see there is a point

at which the solvent can start to attack

the original paint and

that's something i want to avoid so by

taking this scalpel

which has a brand new very sharp blade

and just gliding it over the surface

i can lift off some of these little

pieces

of residue without doing any damage to

the painting

it's tedious and delicate work and not

something that i

enjoy all that much but it's necessary

now i have a feeling that there's going

to be a lot of scraping in my future on

this painting

and again while i don't love it it is

just part of the process

and of course it could always be worse

rather than an old varnish with a little

bit of surface grime mixed in

it could be polyurethane and we know how

that

turned out

now while we're talking about scraping

there is more of course to scrape the

edges of this painting were

once wrapped in a paper

tape and that's not uncommon framers do

that

conservators used to do that to tidy up

the edges i don't do it because i think

it's ridiculous and it makes a mess and

it's not

necessary and of course in the last

conservation they didn't remove this

paper tape they just left it

and they varnished over it which makes

it

much more difficult to remove because

that varnish

prevents any water from penetrating

through the paper and softening up the

adhesive

so what was a potentially easy removal

now must be scraped off and again this

is a sign of just

lazy or sloppy work and well

you know how i feel about that

so i'll continue to scrape all of this

paper tape off the edges

and even though this is probably going

to be covered by the frame rabbit

really quality work is determined not

necessarily by what you don't see

but what nobody sees and that's why i

want to make sure that i take care of

everything

now i mentioned that i pivoted my

approach when i saw that this painting

didn't have two linings

initially i was going to face the

painting with kozo and then remove the

linings and then clean the painting

but since it only has one lining on it i

felt that it would be okay and safe

to forgo the facing but i needed to

clean the old varnish off

because to remove the wax lining i need

to apply heat to the painting

and i don't want to subject that varnish

to any more heat

we saw what happened the first time when

it was subjected to heat and it got

flattened and depressed

i don't want to do that and that's why i

clean the painting first

so i can lay the painting down on my hot

table and then i can bring the

temperature

up just a little bit and once it's

reached

an appropriate temperature that causes

the wax to soften

i can begin peeling back the lining now

again to my benefit and really this is

very lucky

this is just a straight beeswax lining

there's no resin in this wax and

wax resin linings are much much better

than straight wax

linings in fact wax linings by

themselves really aren't all that

effective

it is the combination of wax and resin

that creates a very strong

adhesive bond wax in and of itself

well not so much

this lining was just plain beeswax

and so it comes off very easily and

actually isn't that bad to work over

it's a cool day and so

sitting over the hot table is kind of

okay and beeswax smells

pretty nice so this is one of those rare

circumstances where the painting

is actually giving me some pleasant

surprises so

thank you painting i appreciate it

now after i've peeled back the lining

i'm going gonna remove some of the

adhesive

and in doing so i notice that there's

something written on the back of this

painting

it looks like an inscription but that

inscription

doesn't say prince george of hesse

darmstadt

that said general hamilton so

i'm not sure exactly what's going on but

i'm gonna have to figure it out

anyhow i've removed some of the wax

residue

with a solvent and this is not the final

step in removing this wax it's just an

opportunity to remove what's there while

it's warm

and now i can start to remove this strip

lining

and this is done with water to soften up

that rabbit skin glue

now unfortunately that wax has

penetrated into this fabric and it makes

this water less effective than it would

be had the lining not been added on

as the adhesive softens and weakens its

bond i can start to peel back this strip

lining

and this strip lining was not executed

with a traditional canvas

rather it is what appears to be cotton

muslin which is a lighter weight cotton

fabric that is

often used by tailors and clothing

designers

to mock up patterns or in linings of

suit jackets

and other places where a lesser quality

fabric

is needed in any event whether it's

canvas

whether it's silk whether it's muslin it

needs to go

it has no place and it gets in the way

of the next procedure

so i have to pull this back slowly and

working in

small sections i can make sure that i'm

not putting any unnecessary stress on

the original canvas

which again i think is pretty brittle so

i want to take

extra precaution

now with all of the muslin strip lining

removed i can start to remove

the adhesive and this is going to be

much easier

because i don't have a wax saturated

fabric

preventing the water from reaching the

adhesive and

the wax saturation of the original

canvas is actually going to work to my

benefit here

because it's so saturated with wax it is

impervious to water it is

waterproof and so i don't have to worry

so much about any excess water getting

on the canvas

being absorbed by the canvas and then

causing distortions as it evaporates

or causing the paint layer to flake off

which can be common

when paintings get wet so the wax lining

is actually helping me here who'd have

thought

now there is no fast way to do this it's

just a lot of scraping

and cleaning and more scraping but when

i finish a section

i take a cotton blotter paper and the

steel weight

and press it because that area of the

canvas

isn't wax saturated and is vulnerable to

water

so i want to make sure that the blotter

paper absorbs any excess water

and that the canvas is kept flat under

pressure so that it doesn't distort

now when i scrape canvas i often will

try to go

on a diagonal a 45 so that the blade

isn't running with the warp or the weft

of the canvas so that it glides over the

surface and doesn't catch

if i go with one direction i run the

risk

that if there is a slub or a error

in the weaving that the blade will catch

and that could damage the canvas so by

going on a 45

i'm trying to glide on top of the canvas

and when it works the adhesive comes off

pretty swiftly

and it's actually not all that bad you

can develop a rhythm

and get into a groove and then all of a

sudden

an hour or two has passed luckily

this is how it's working on this

painting some paintings

they fight you and an hour feels like

10.

and as i continue on i'm going to change

out these blotter papers so that as they

get wet

they get replaced with dry ones to make

sure that all of that excess moisture is

being absorbed

when i peeled back the lining i found

this adhesive residue

surrounding the areas of the tears which

leads me to believe that there was a

larger patch that was one time adhered

to this canvas

and this adhesive is not receptive to

water it's some sort of chemical

adhesive so i have to use a solvent to

remove it

and i have to saturate the adhesive a

little bit so that it swells

and then i can scrape it off so i've

taken several cotton balls that are

saturated with a solvent

and i'm placing them on the areas of the

old adhesive

after a few seconds or so the adhesive

is swelled enough

and soft that i can begin scraping it

off with the blade

i have to move fairly quickly because i

don't want to saturate this canvas

too much with this solvent so it's a

delicate balance

between moving fast enough that i

limit the exposure and not so fast that

the adhesive

doesn't fully swell and become removable

now it looks really rough you can see

all of the areas that i've scraped the

canvas looks

pretty lousy but that's just because

there's still residue

and as i take the solvent and i begin to

remove that residue

as the solvent evaporates we can start

to see that the damage

really isn't there yes there is a slight

area where the canvas is a little bit

lighter

but that's not necessarily because i

scraped as much as it is because

that area of the canvas was protected

from oxidization

or from the wax by this old adhesive

in any event i want to remove all of

this adhesive because i

don't want it creating a bulge on the

front of the painting during the next

step

and so as i clean it off you can start

to see

really the stain or the damaged areas

don't look that bad at all and one would

be hard-pressed to even identify it as

an area of damage

in fact the canvas looks pretty good

now with all of the adhesive with the

lining and the strip lining removed i'm

ready to go

back to the hot table and finally

desaturate this canvas of wax

what has been helpful thus far in

protecting the canvas is now an

impediment and so i'm going to saturate

the back of the canvas with a solvent

i'm going to turn the hot table on and

raise it up to temperature

then i'm going to flip the canvas over

onto a brand new

acid-free cotton blotter paper

and i'm going to extract the wax this

cotton blotter paper will absorb

all of that waxy solvent mix when heat

is applied and pressure

is applied to facilitate the pressure

application

i'm going to wrap the painting with a

cotton webbing

and this is going to allow me to extract

the air from around the painting

the cotton webbing ties into two vacuum

ports that are drilled

through the corners of the aluminum hot

table and connected to a vacuum pump

i'm going to create an envelope with

this pet film and i'm just going to tape

it down so that it's air tight

and that's going to make sure that when

i apply the vacuum pressure there are no

gaps or air leaks because those can be

problematic

and i'm just using basic cheapo packing

tape

ironically i found that the cheapest

tape is the best i once went

on a very expensive tape discovery

expedition

ordering dozens upon dozens of different

rolls of tape

to find the best ones and to my surprise

the cheapest tape was the best one so

i stick with it anyhow once that

envelope is created i can turn on the

vacuum pressure

and i'm not using a ton of pressure just

enough so that there's an

even application on the entire surface

and what that's going to do

is make sure that there's good contact

with the back of the painting

and the blotter paper so that that wax

solvent mixture has somewhere to go

now once the hot table has reached

temperature the painting's been allowed

to sit

i can turn off the heat and let the

painting cool to room temperature

and this is one of those reasons why i

like this cheap tape

it doesn't leave any residue on the

aluminum and it doesn't tear apart

so sometimes lovely cheap materials are

your best friend

who knows in any event i can peel back

this

p-e-t film and i can see that it didn't

stick and that's a really good thing

and i can check to make sure there are

no waves and ripples and that's a sign

that the envelope was airtight

i'm going to remove this painting from

the blotter paper and i'm going to

transfer it over to the table in the

front half of my studio

at this point just about everything that

needs to come off the painting is

off but i'm going to clean the surface

once again just to make sure that any

wax that was softened

and bled through the painting to the

face is fully removed i don't want any

of those residues on the painting

this is also a good opportunity for me

to think about

what work has been done and how i've had

to shift

and of course what work needs to come in

order to put this painting back together

i have to investigate who this artist is

who this portrait is of

i have to tell my client and figure out

what they want to do

and then of course i have to start

focusing on the actual painting

and thinking about how i'm going to deal

with the structural issues

the newfound inscription and of course

all of the retouching that's coming

as always thanks for watching and

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