Ultrasonic mister for consolidating paintings

Inger Grimstad <ingergrimstad [at] yahoo__com> writes

>We have nearly 1100 paintings by Edvard Munch in the Munch-Museum,
>and a great deal of our collection are paintings with a matte,
>powdery surface--in many cases due to the treatment by the artist
>himself

In regard to the Munch paintings that had been "aged," by the
artist: before you carry out consolidation of matte paint, it is
important to discuss the exact state to which you are choosing to
return the paintings. Given that the present highly deteriorated
state is a result of the process that the artist himself initiated,
I recommend that you start by creating a time line to detail the
incremental changes in condition and decide exactly the point to
which you are trying to return the painting.  (If the medium was oil
or casein, the created paintings were not matte originally.)  It
seems reasonable, for example, to conclude that the rips that are
the result of folding are something you wish to "fix," but it is
still important that everyone involved in the project agree together
on what it is you are trying to restore.  The fact that you see the
matte deteriorated surface as beautiful should not be a major factor
in this decision, since many different states of the object might be
considered beautiful as well, and, in any case, it is the artist's
judgment that is the issue.

B. Appelbaum

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 13:28
                 Distributed: Tuesday, November 2, 1999
                       Message Id: cdl-13-28-003
                                  ***