Paintings conservation

The paintings collections at National Museums Liverpool number around 3800 works, ranging from the 14th to the 21st centuries. Early Italian and Netherlandish and British 19th century schools are particularly well represented. Many world-famous masterpieces are also cared for, along with a growing collection of modern and contemporary works.

Looking after such a varied collection involves many different aspects of conservation:

• it is important to keep the paintings in stable, clean environments, both when in store or on display
• paintings may need structural work such as relining canvases or rejoining panels
• surface treatments include removing dirt, discoloured varnish and old retouchings. New layers of varnish are applied and areas of missing paint are filled and retouched.
• modern paintings may never have been varnished and need quite different treatments to those of old masters. Some water-based solutions for removing surface dirt, for example, could be damaging to the pigments of an unvarnished painting with a deliberately matt surface.

National Museums Liverpool has an active loans-out programme. We also prepare around 40 paintings each year for loan to exhibitions in the UK and abroad. We have to be certain that each painting is robust enough to cope with road, air or sea travel. They are packed in specially designed crates that withstand shock and vibration and sudden changes in temperature or relative humidity. We also condition check and monitor paintings on loan to the many temporary exhibitions across all eight of our venues.

As well as practical treatments we carry out research into the techniques and materials of our collections. This often involves liasing with conservators from other institutions. in 2003 we co-curated an exhibition and catalogue about the conservation and technical examination of our portrait of Henry VIII from Walker Art Gallery.

Recent projects

Have a look at the following web features about painting conservation projects:

• the conservation and technical examination of 'St Bernardino preaching' from the Walker Art Gallery
• the conservation of Gainsborough's 'Viscountess Folkestone' from Sudley House
• an investigation into a 15th century painting of 'St Michael and the Dragon' from the Lady Lever Art Gallery
• a technical examination of 'Molly Longlegs' by George Stubbs
• a feature on the Henry VIII revealed exhibition, held at the Walker Art Gallery in 2003

Further information

• read some frequently asked questions to a paintings conservator
• see the paintings on display in the Reveal gallery at the National Conservation Centre

Contact the department

Click here to send an email to paintings conservation

In this section

• the next conservation department is paper
• conservation departments home page

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