The restoration and conservation of oil paintings is highly skilled work and requires extensive training. Great care must be taken not to remove original paint during cleaning. Old varnish layers can, in unskilled hands, be confused with glazes applied by the artist. In the past, and even today, unwary restorers remove these glazes. Surface soiling and discoloured varnishes can be safely and successfully removed to reveal the original colours of a painting.
Paintings with holes and tears can be restored often involving a process known as lining which requires special equipment. Lining is a method of bonding a new supporting canvas, of similar weave, to the original damaged painting. Sometimes, it may be better to weave new fibres into the original canvas to make an infill. Tears in some paintings may have weights temporally fixed either side of a tear and these help pull the sides together which then allows bonding of the torn fibres. Though it is still common practice in some restoration studios, we rarely patch holes and tears because almost invariably the patch shines through to the front of the painting in an unsightly way.
Missing gesso is in-filled with special putty and subsequently in-painted. |  |
 |  |
Before and after restoration
This painting had been subjected to much over painting during a previous restoration. |
|