Jesus Talking to the Daughters of Jerusalem

Artist: unknown
Media: Oil on Canvas
Date: 19th century

Condition.

Severely damaged in a flood, there were large areas of paint loss and unstable paint as well as undulations across the surface of the canvas.

At some point in the past the stretcher bar mortice and tenon joints had been nailed through.  The support therefore needed to be modified to allow the corner joints to open up and improve the tension.

There was a thick layer of dirt on both front and back and cleaning test showed that a discoloured varnish was hiding the bright original colours.

Treatment.

Unstable paint was consolidated.

Nails were removed from the stretcher and new tensioning keys were made to fit the corners grooves. The painting was carefully ‘keyed out’ to give an even tension across the surface before securing the wedges in position with nylon thread.

Undulations were treated with moisture and gentle heat and left dry under weights. This was repeated until the surface was flat.

The dirt was removed first after which the varnish was dissolved with organic solvent.

A brush varnish was applied to saturate the colours and the losses were filled and textured to match the original.

Paint losses were retouched. The large area of missing green drapery, the foreground and grasses were carefully redesigned to match the original in style and colour. These were gradually built up in glazes to match as far as possible.

A second semi-matt spray varnish was applied to further reintegrate the retouching and give an even sheen across the surface.

The painting was then re-framed to conservation standards.

Courtesy of Plowden & Smith