Overall Condition
Not ratedOverall Condition
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Treatment to french type gilded portrait fame depiciting Mary Brady 1835-1910, wife of Henry D. Drayton by Edmund Bowers 1859. (from damage due to hurricane Hugo.
Substrates:
Mitres ripped apart, oval liner broken in tow, wood chip out of upper cove edge. Crushed corners at two place. Screw eyes and wire and painting clips on back..( frame suffered damage due to impact of fall as well as prolonged moisture saturation due
to the effect of Hugo.
Surface Finishes:
5% Gesso losses, 29" outside edge casting miossing, acanthus loaf losses overall, Porper lower right has loose gesso from shock of fall as does inside rectangular linier. Water damage resulting in peeling gold on fluted cove and falt square . No visible toner, but surface dirt overall..Overall Condition
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THis oil on canvas painting is a portrait of a middle aged woman with blue eyes and dark hair pulled to the back of her head. Her dress with a low bodice is indistinctly painted with only small traces of red at her shoulders suggesting the dress' shape and color. The upper background is dark and featureless. The painting has been previously restored in a least one episode including cleaning, overpainting, mounting ona wooden panel and revarnishing. At present, the painting is disfigured extensively by accretions of partially dissolved plaster and severely blanched varnish which are the result of extreme exposure to water.
The painting is mounted on a 1/8" five -ply wooden panel with smoothly finished faces, apparently mahogany. A softwood stretcher, probably the original has been glued and nailed to the reverse including an additional horizontal crossbar. THe wooden support is sound and stable and without apparent damage.
The canvas is apparently linen in a very fine closed tabby weave with 22 x 22 z-spun threads per cm2. The tacking margins were removed, but there are no other apparent losses of the original canvas. The obscuring varnish condition, however, may conceal small canvas losses. The canvas is attached to the panel with a undetermined adhesive, probably glue. It has not been generally weakened but the canvas is beginning to detach along the bottom edge.
The ground layer is apparently oil-medium, thinly and evenly applied to the canvas without hiding the fine canvas texture/ The ground is sound and stable and well adhered to the canvas and paint.
The paint is oil-medium, thinly and directly applied in layers with no impasto. THe paint is hard and brittle and very finely cracked in a regular and tightly linked pattern with intervals less than 1/16". Flakes defined by the fissures are firmly adhered to the ground and they are not cupped or lifted except at some locations along the bottom. the ground shows through in a pattern that reveals the texture of the canvasbeneath. the entire paint surface has ben evenly abraded in past cleaning; especially in the most thinly painted areas of the eyes and darker areas in general. In the background areas this abrasion has been extensively overpainted even throughout the lighter paiinted protions in the lower part of the painting. tRepaint in the lower area covers discolorred varnish that was not removed in a past cleaning. A 6" streak of mechanical paint abrasion, 3//6" wide has recently occurred in the left center, resulting from a scraping blow to the surface. It appears that this blow was caused by a large piece of wet wall palster, since partiially dissoved plaster, in granular powder and small coarse chunks, has adhered to the painting's surface. Due to the sound panel mounting, the damage caused by the blow was relatively slight, affecting the paint surface only.
THe surface of thepaint is covered with moderately and evenly appled layers of varnish . The varnish has been severely disrupted by exposure to water. It has blanched in a mottled pattern that is completely opaque in some areas and milky in others. This blanching generally conforms to the oval slight area but water streaking and blanching has occurred under the frame spandrels. The varnish layers are soluble in Acetone. Partially dissolved plaster on the surface is removable mechanically and with mild aqueous detergent solutions or dilute NH4Oh as is the repaint.
This painting has been subjected to an extensive amount of water. ALthough separation of the canvas from the support and the paint and ground from the canvas is just beginning along the bottom edge it can be anticipated that with changes in temperature and relative humidity on a daily, monthly and yearly basis in the future, any adhesion to the plywood and canvas that may be apparent at this time will weaken and actual paint loss can be expected. The bottom right corner is already exhibiting this loss.