Painting Restoration & Conservation

Working on traditional easel paintings, modern and contemporary artworks, monumental paintings, church paintings, painted Rood screens and polychrome sculpture, our painting restoration and conservation service offers a broad range of treatments – all dependant upon the object and the client’s needs.  These include:

 

Consolidation of unstable, lifting and flaking paint – an important early stage in the painting restoration cycle

Surface cleaning – removal of surface dust and grime (back and front) without disturbing existing varnish or original unvarnished paint layers 

Infestation and rot treatments

Structural treatments including canvas tear mending, removal of canvas deformations, repair of splits, cracks and losses in panel paintings, removal of panel warps, repair and replacement of wooden stretchers, panel cradles and other secondary support structures

Lining, re-lining and edge strip-lining of canvas paintings when appropriate in the painting restoration treatment process to strengthen  or repair the support of the painting.

In-depth cleaning including removal of discoloured varnish and past non-original repaints where appropriate to ensure the very best result from the finished restoration

 

 

 

Painting restoration which may include minimal or complex re-integration and restoration, including filling and replacing losses to match the surrounding original, and re-varnishing

 

 

 

Frame treatments including minor repairs to structure (splits, cracks etc) and surface decoration (missing mouldings, consolidation of flaking gilding, etc) and cleaning, but excluding major alterations, re-gilding, or the fabrication of new frames*

Preventive measures including lining frame rebate with felt to prevent chaffing edge of painting, repairing or renewing frame fixings, affixing protective backings either to the reverse of the painting’s stretcher or to the reverse of the frame as appropriate, installing picture glass, adapting the frame to accommodate micro-climate control chambers around particularly unstable paintings, and fabrication of customised micro-climate control chambers to museum standard

*Requests for new frames or major frame treatments are normally passed to specialist framers.  We have a number with whom we work closely, the choice merely subject to the requirement for traditional, modern or contemporary frames.