Treatment: Portrait of 
Marie-Antoinette

Before and after treatment, above.

Our client’s framed oil painting of
Marie-Antoinette fell off the wall and
was scraped in two dozen areas.
Luckily there were no punctures,
but a half-dozen dents or serious
scraps created a need for wax/resin
infills before painting infill.

The painting has no visible signature.
It appears to be a (very old) lovely
student copy of the image hanging in
Versailles, by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, right.  Students often copy famous
paintings for practice; as long as no
fake signature is applied it is not forgery,
and good student images have value.

Protocol for treatment was to:
1) Gently clean area to be treated.
2) Infill and shape deep indentations (above) and deep scrapes as necessary using
Gamblin’s Pigmented Wax/Resin (PWR) using a wax carving pencil.
3) After curing, paint infill (mixing on palette) to match surrounding areas
using Gamblin’s Oil paint in the following pigments: Burnt Umber, Raw Umber,
Phthalo Green, Warm White, Golden Ochre, Pink Brown,
Van Dyke Brown, odd bits of premixed flesh colors, and Galkyd Gel.
4) Care was taken to match color/stroke patterns in the areas large enough for them to be seen; texture was matched when possible with the PWR before the infill.

Before and after sample areas, below.

Before and after treatment, above.

©MPF Conservation.  May be printed for your own use.
Please ask permission to repost.

About dkatiepowellart

hollywood baby turned beach gurl turned steel&glass city gurl turned cowgurl turned herb gurl turned green city gurl. . . artist writer photographer. . . cat lover but misses our big dogs, gone to heaven. . . buddhist and interested in the study of spiritual traditions. . . foodie, organic, lover of all things mik, partner in conservation business mpfconservation, consummate blogger, making a dream happen, insomniac who is either reading buddhist teachings or not-so-bloody mysteries or autobio journal thangs early in the morning when i can't sleep
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2 Responses to Treatment: Portrait of 
Marie-Antoinette

  1. Dan Antion says:

    Amazing, work, Kate. Very nice.

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