This painting is a family heirloom that was in a bit of a precarious situation: the linen that was used was a very heavy kind. This gave an advantage to the texture and the feel of the painting, a nice complement to a work of this theme, but unfortunately with heavy linen the paint film is more vulnerable to cracking; and as family heirloom’s tend to get up there in age, this painting had numerous areas in need of in-painting.

Off stretcher bar, uncleaned sharing damage and loss at the bottom portion of picture

Closer view of damage

Close up, no cleaning.

Going onto new linen with Beva-371.

Flattened and just re-stretched.

In-filling and cleaned.

Close up of in-fill.

Loss of paint and gesso in the body of the pheasant.

Close up of tail showing in-filling.

Some in-painting and more cleaning.

Further in-painting. Not quite done.

Cleaned and in-paint complete. No varnish.

Close of in-painting complete.

Close of in-painting complete.

Close of in-painting complete.

Cleaned.

In-filled and some in-painting.

Almost there.

Complete with varnish.