The Art Of Painting Conservation and Restoration
Stella Art Conservation offers art conservation and restoration of ancient, traditional, modern, and contemporary paintings, providing skilled treatment on paintings from all artistic genres and periods, from Byzantine to contemporary age.
Art painting restoration can be performed on canvas, traditional panel paintings, contemporary paintings, icons, non-western paintings, portrait miniatures, reverse glass paintings, paintings with large dimensions, and others.
Paintings carry a piece of history with them; they allow art-lovers to jump back in time and get lost in the details of the artist’s creativity. Yet, all paintings age in the course of time and many may even be damaged.
Throughout the years paintings can get deteriorated for many reasons: humidity and temperature, moisture, heat, light pollutants and pests can slowly or suddenly cause damage to a painting.
These agents of deteriorating impact all of the components that make up a painting in various way. Some of the most common issues are:
Tears and Holes
Loss in the support and paint layer
Nicotine
Layer of nicotine and smoke
Mold
Dirt & Grime
Deformation of the Support
A structural distortion of the support whereby the support has become twisted, turned or bent out of shape; no longer flat or in plane.
Discoloration of the Varnish
The varnish protective layer may turn yellow over the time changing the effect of colors. The varnish is embedded with dirt and grime
Cracking
Crack or Crackle: Failure of materials caused by stress
Abrasion
Damage to the paint layers, resulting from rubbing, scraping, or other wear.
Soot
Soot & Water
Losses
Missing areas of original paint, ground and/or support, most frequently the result of flaking, abrasion, tears, etc
Blanching
White/gray discoloration of the layer caused by prolonged high relative humidity and /or condensation on the surface of the painting.
Infestation
Insects are attracted by the artwork’s materials: wood, canvas (cellulose) adhesive, some natural color (vegetable source), proteins on the fixative or varnish.
Stretcher marks/ Indentations
Impression of the stretcher bars on the paint layers caused when the canvas is slack on its stretcher and by climate-induced tension. A depression on the canvas caused by impact of a pointed object.
Other issues...
Flaking
Accidental event
Old Restorations
Lack of knowledge on conservation may cause major damages on a painting, sometime irreversible like paintings over cleaned with an aggressive solvents solution. Or the use of wrong materials.
At Stella Art Conservation we strictly adhere to the rules and regulations of the American Institute of Conservation (AIC)
We are proud to be known for having expert art conservators with superior knowledge in fine art conservation techniques, who are capable of restoring highly damaged artwork, while preserving the artist’s original intention.
Want to learn more? Check out our portfolio to view some of our past works.