Cleaning
Over time the natural resins used in traditional varnish oxidize to dark yellow and become stained by environmental dirt. This consists of dust, yellow staining from tobacco smoke, grey soot from open fires and vehicle fumes. Together these layers dramatically reduce the vibrancy, detail and quality of your oil paintings.
Turning back the years
By carefully removing these staining layers from your art work's surface I will bring back the quality, light and fine detail not seen for many years, making your paintings far more appealing and decorative.
Repairing a canvas
A stretched canvas weakens over time and suffers from wide humidity and heat variations as well as mould growth that weakens the canvas over time. The painting will become brittle and crack, creased from its stretcher support or torn, dented and holed from accidental damage.
To repair this variety of damage, I will line the picture with another canvas support to the back of the painting. There may also be an existing old lining and old glue that needs to be removed first.
Lining damaged canvas
Repairing the canvas will take several stages; a tear or hole will be pre-welded and filled, or a cracked and stretcher- creased canvas will be pre-vapour pressed before the lining process to smoothen the surface.
The painting is then lined with either cotton or linen. I use either natural or synthetic wax/resin or traditional light weight composition paste. If the painting has thick brush strokes/impasto, a soft bed will be tailor made to the depth of the paint layer to stop the brush strokes being flattened.
For paintings with a signature or inscription on the reverse, the canvas can have a transparent/invisible lining so the inscription remains visible through the lining.
All this work is carried out on a specialist low pressure vacuum hot table.
Transparent/invisible lining
I have developed a specialist transparent lining technique to help preserve or increase the value to your painting.
Paintings can have old linings removed and preserved with an invisible lining allowing the original canvas to be seen. This technique also applies to pictures with signatures and inscriptions on the back.
Restoration
To completely hide the damaged areas of the art work it is necessary to in-paint with matching colour, tone, fine detail, texture and patina surrounding that damage. This needs to be carried out with the highest quality reversible restoration materials .
Framing service
The choice of frame style is enormous and categorised mainly by period. I can tailor make frames to the correct period of your art work ranging from Old Master, through Georgian and Victorian to contemporary and modern.
The frame will be hand made in gesso and gilded in either 23 3/4 carat gold or gold-coloured metal leaf or a combination of the two. There is a variety of frame including swept, spoon, and cushion. Ornamentation can be added to the corners and centre of the frame, including piercings, in-lays and sprigs. An ageing patina will be added to give an antique look to the frame.
I am happy to advise on the various options to suit the period of the painting, your taste and budget.
Frame restoration
Damaged frames can be repaired by replicating the un-damaged parts and using the moulded copies to make the repairs. The repairs or the entire frame is then re-gilded with either 23 3/4 carat gold or gold-coloured metal leaf or a combination of the two. An ageing patina is added to give an antique look to the frame or to the repairs.
It is possible to clean dirty frames but if the old gilding has oxidized then the entire frame will need to be re-gilded.
Pricing
Pricing is very difficult until I have viewed the work of art and assessed the amount of restoration work required. Please call me now for a free quote on Tel 020 8395 5394 or email me with photos of your painting to: art@baumkotter.com
