15/10/2024
Born this day in 1885, Dirk Filarski!
We are celebrating his birthday with an overview of the extensive treatment of his painting "Pine trees in the Snow" made in 1917. On view at . Scroll to see the different treatment steps!
1. Before treatment and after treatment
2. A big amount of small paint losses is visible when looking closely at the paint layers. This picture gives a good idea of the actual amount. Each arrow points at a lacuna. During treatment we consolidated all the loose and flaking paint.
3. The painting was treated several times before, highly likely because paint losses were also occurring in the past. It seems to be an ongoing problem which have to be monitored throughout the years. In the past the painting was extensively overpainted to cover up the paint loss. The red areas are indicting the locations with overpaint. The full sky and foreground were completely overpainted.
4. The varnish was covered by a grey layer of dirt. On the picture you can see the surface cleaning halfway through removal.
5. Halfway through the removal of the discolored, yellow varnish and overpaint. Underneath the overpaint was another discolored varnish layer present, which we also removed.
6. To be able to integrate all the small paint losses, we filled and structured the lacunae with white fillings which you can see on this picture.
7. After retouching, the vibrant colours and shapes of the trees are coming back to life.
8. After the final varnish layer we placed the painting back in it’s frame.
#1917
