|
The
following series of photographs partially
document the transformation of a pair of
ancestral portraits from the American South.
The original pre-Civil war frames carry
the labels of a New Orleans art supplier,
and one of the frames had been recently
smashed by a moving company. According to
family tradition the paintings had been
"slashed by Yankee bayonets during the Civil
War", and one eye of the woman had been
painted over a former restorer's patch.
The paintings were cleaned, lined in a vacuum
press to flatten the cracks, and a new eye
was perfectly re-painted by Deborah Kravitz,
who serves currently as President of the
Board of Directors of the Fenway Studios,
and Senior Inpainter for Peter Williams/Museum
Services. The broken frame fragments were
re-joined, the missing gesso elements re-cast,
fit and the gold matched to the original
surface. Courtesy Private
Collection
|
