One afternoon, I got a phone call from Cathy B. requesting restoration service for a painting inherited from her mom. Cathy brought the damaged art work to my office. Voila! First of all the painting was very “dirty.” Tons of grime, dust and aged varnish were on the paint surface, plus it had multiple tears. One of them was the worst of all. It had three vertical cuts with three horizontal cuts. (see images). Someone before me tried to fix the problem by applying green paint on the top of the tears. Then they glazed the entire painting with that green paint. So Dr. Maris, what to do? Let’s begin with removing layers of dust and grime. Afterwards remove the green over paint from the tears and the surface of the painting. Then I closed the tears and prepared the painting for relining. Other necessary conservation treatments were applied.
