Paris as It Was and as It Is / A Sketch Of The French Capital, Illustrative Of The Effects Of The Revolution

by Francis William Blagdon

"In that state, the wood was successively moistened with clear water, in small compartments, which disposed it to detach itself: then the artist separated it with the rounded point of a knife-blade."

"The picture, thus deprived of all the wood, presented to the eye every symptom of the injury which it had sustained. It had formerly been repaired; and, in order to fasten again the parts which threatened to fall off, recourse had been had to oils and varnishes. But those ingredients passing through the intervals left by such parts of the picture as were reduced to curling scales, had been extended in the impression to the paste, on which the painting rested, and had rendered the real restoration more difficult, without producing the advantageous effect which had thence been expected."

"The same process would not serve for separating the parts of the impression which had been indurated by varnishes, and those where the paste had remained unmixed: it was necessary to moisten the former for some time in small compartments: when they were become sufficiently softened, the artist separated them with the blade of his knife: the others were more easily separated by moistening them with a flannel, and rubbing them slightly. It required all the address and patience of Citizen HACQUINS to leave nothing foreign to the work of the original painter: at length the outline of RAPHAEL was wholly exposed to view, and left by itself."

"In order to restore a little suppleness to the painting, which was too much dried, it was rubbed all over with carded cotton imbibed with oil, and wiped with old muslin: then white lead, ground with oil, was substituted in the room of the impression made by paste, and fixed by means of a soft brush."

"After being left to dry for three months, a gauze was glued on the impression made by oil; and on the latter, a fine canvas."

"When this canvas was dry, the picture was detached from the table, and turned, in order to remove the cartonnage from it with water; this operation being effected, the next proceeding was to get rid of the appearance of the inequalities of the surface arising from the curling up of its parts: for that purpose, the artist successively applied on the inequalities, flour-paste diluted. Then having put a greasy paper on the moistened part, he laid a hot iron on the parts curled up, which became level: but it was not till after he had employed the most unequivocal signs to ascertan the suitable degree of heat, that he ventured to come near the painting with the iron."

"It has been seen that the painting, disengaged from its impression made by paste and from every foreign substance, had been fixed on an impression made by oil, and that a level form had been given to the uneven parts of its surface. This master-piece was still to be solidly applied on a new ground: for that, it was necessary to paste paper over it again, detach it from the temporary gauze which had been put on the impression, add a new coat of oxyde of lead and oil, apply to it a gauze rendered very supple, and on the latter, in like manner done over with a preparation of lead, a raw cloth, woven all in one piece, and impregnated, on its exterior surface, with a resinous substance, which was to confine it to a similar canvass fixed on the stretching-frame. This last operation required that the body of the picture, disengaged from its cartonnage, or paper facing, and furnished with a new ground, should be exactly applied to the cloth done over with resinous substances, at the same time avoiding every thing that might hurt it by a too strong or unequal extension, and yet compelling every part of its vast extent to adhere to the cloth strained on the stretching-frame. It is by all these proceedings that the picture has been incorporated with a ground more durable than the original one, and guarded against the accidents which had produced the injuries. It was then subjected to restoration, which is the object of the second part of this Report."

"We have been obliged to confine ourselves to pointing out the successive operations, the numerous details of which we have attended; we have endeavoured to give an idea of this interesting art, by which the productions of the pencil may be indefinitely perpetuated, in order only to state the grounds of the confidence that it has appeared to us to merit."

SECOND PART.

"After having given an account of the mechanical operations, employed with so much success in the first part of the restoration of the picture by RAPHAEL, it remains for us to speak of the second, the restoration of the painting, termed by the French artists restauration pittoresque. This part is no less interesting than the former. We are indebted to it for the reparation of the ravages of time and of the ignorance of men, who, from their unskilfulness, had still added to the injury which this master-piece had already suffered.