Historic painting restoration requires highly skilled conservators to undertake repairs with sensitive treatments.
Every artwork that comes into our studio is unique in terms of era, material or style and therefore requires an experienced, bespoke approach to cleaning and structural damage.
Our team can restore many styles of painting, these include:
We can also assist with unusual artworks and those with or without a varnish layer. If you have any queries or would like an estimated cost, please fill out the form below. View the gallery for examples of our work.
Oil paintings lose their vibrancy and original colours as they age. This is typically due to the varnish layer as it darkens and yellows over time. Staining can be worsened by smoke, fires, nicotine or water.
We use conservation solutions to clean historic paintings. This is a scientific approach, with methods tailored to the sensitivity of each artwork. Surface cleaning is usually followed by a varnish removal, this is conducted with handmade swabs over several hours. The varnish can then be replaced with a new, non-yellowing variety to preserve the true colours.
Canvas paintings can easily be torn or punctured. We can restore this devastating damage with an intricate thread-by-thread repair process. Our team will talk you through this intricate treatment, ensuring that your painting has the best possible result.
Without swift intervention, tears can lead to flaking paint and further deterioration of the artwork. We recommend contacting our team as soon as possible to lessen the visual impact and complexity of the damage.
Surface cracks can be a natural occurrence on a painting as it ages, but when these areas begin to disrupt the visual quality they may require professional intervention. Cracking paint can be stabilised before it leads to flaking. Lost areas can be sympathetically retouched to retain the composition, whilst not altering or covering the original paint.
Flaking paint can seem alarming, but this can be restored. We recommend that you collect any loose pieces so that we can reapply them. This will help to retain as much of the original artwork as possible during the restoration process.
If a canvas is loose or without stretcher bars, this may lead to an unstable paint layer, cracks, flaking and tears. We can stretch loose paintings and consolidate any areas that have been impacted by this loss of tension.
We welcome questions about painting restoration and can give you an estimated cost for repair and cleaning.
