The painting came to our facility for emergency conservation treatment following water damage from a roof leak while in its institution’s storage. Areas of the painting exhibited visible ground layers from severe cupping and cracking paint.

This painting was executed in old oil-based house paints on an unprimed, very finely woven printed fabric, which was very brittle due to age. The painting’s surface was extremely dirty and appears to have no varnish coating at all.

This oil painting has reportedly been through a fire, and had evidence of tiny pockmarks and blistering in isolated areas throughout the composition from the fire’s heat. Chemical abrasion and skinning (thinning of the painted surface) were identified as the result of the painting being previously over-cleaned.

This privately owned panel painting of Queen Elizabeth I of England and Ireland “The Virgin Queen,” was most likely painted towards the end of her life in 1603. At some point in the mid 20th c. an attempt was made by an untrained restorer to clean and mount this painting onto a crudely built oak support panel. The attachment of the support panel was a total failure. As a result of this work, the original panel painting was further damaged.

This portrait was made using oil paints, over a white preparatory ground layer, which was stretched onto a four-member home-made pine stretcher. The linen canvas was secured on its stretcher with iron tacks that are now rusted. The canvas is out of plain and partially torn from its stretcher, showing several areas of staining, losses, tears, and scratches. The paint was not well bonded to the canvas and needs to be consolidated, lined and re-stretched prior to dirt, varnish, and grime removal.

The painting had been previously cleaned several times, and multiple complex tears were mended as well. With over 6 feet of tears, that likely didn’t happen at the same time, we realized that it had been restored and maybe relined several times. Most of the tears were misaligned when mended, and were heavily overpainted.

The Continental Congress commissioned the painting of Conrad Alexandre Gerard, first minister of France to the United States, by Charles Willson Peale, in 1779. It then hung in the main entry hallway of Independence Hall for over 100 years. The earliest notated records of restoration for this painting were by Pasquale Farina in 1916, and then Anne Clapp in 1957 and 1961.