Conservation Project -- Edouard Detaille Vive l'Emprereur

(Click on a picture for an enlargement)

The very final stages of the conservation treatment are well underway. With the structural treatment complete and the painting stable and secure to hold its own weight, the aesthetic aspects of the image are being addressed.

The most significant and visually disturbing damage to the surface is the amount of paint loss caused by the water damage in the 1950's flood and the old tears and holes in the canvas support. The paint loss is quite substantial in areas and goes right down to the support leaving the bare canvas exposed.

Large areas of detail have been lost, scaring the image and leaving the painting incomplete.

The areas of paint loss needed to be filled to raise the depth of the gap from the canvas to the paint surface. Two different types of white filling material were used on different parts of the painting for compatibility reasons. Each fill needed to be textured to match the original paint surrounding it. This process took 4 months.

With the white putty in place, it made the number of loss sites quite easily identifiable. Filling clearly showed the extent of the damage and scale of the next stage in the reconstruction process.

Inpainting

Once filled and textured, inpainting - the application of colour to the fill areas - began. Not wanting the damaged areas of the picture to distract from the main composition of the painting, deceptive inpainting is being carried out.

Inpainting requires the build-up of colour in several layers to match perfectly with the surrounding paint layers. Inpainting is carried out with conservationally sound materials, easily reversible and distinguishable from the original. The purpose of deceptive inpainting is to bring visual harmony back to the picture. The process of inpainting is open to public view every week day.

A new frame for Vive l'Empereur 

A flood that hit the Gallery in 1958 devastated the original frame for the Vive L'Empereur painting. It was probably after that event that the painting and its frame were separated, and consequently the original frame was lost.

Fortunately, old photographs of the painting in its original frame have been preserved in Art Gallery archives, and they can now be used as a source for the design of a new reproduction frame.

The immense size of the painting means that construction of the new frame poses a great challenge for the Art Gallery framer, David Butler. Its design requires great carpentry and artisan skills.

The wooden moulding, which forms a base for composition ornaments, is made of lightwood, Western Red Cedar, in order to reduce the significant weight of the frame. The design of the frame requires the gluing together of several mouldings profiles.

A silicon putty impression of the Laurel leaf ornament, which will form decoration of the main part of moulding (torus), was taken from a frame of similar design around the painting Marjorie by John Longstaff, in the collection of the AGNSW. This impression was then used to make a positive form, from which a negative mould from rigid material was prepared. This mould was used to create composition ornaments, which will then be attached to the new frame.

Several layers of gesso and bole foundation will be applied to the frame prior to gilding it with gold leaf using traditional water and oil gilding techniques. Each of the members of the frame will be made and finished separately. Later they will be joined in situ using supporting screws.

A sample corner of the future frame was made first in order to make sure that the design of the frame is appropriate and will complement the painting. The sample is exhibited next to the painting being restored at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and can be viewed by the public.