Repair of tears by reweaving and/or by lining
A tear in a canvas painting is one of the most dramatic forms of damage. Fortunately they are repairable, and with restoration can become invisible. Conservators prefer to make repairs which interfere as slightly as possible with the art object. For this reason, techniques have been developed for mending tears by weaving the threads back together, and joining them with carefully chosen adhesive. This work is necessarily laborious, and is performed under a microscope.
When complete, the torn area of canvas should be flat again, and the areas where paint particles have been lost are filled and retouched to match the surrounding paint.
Sometimes the painting must be lined. A selection of adhesive is made, and the canvas is ‘backed’ with new linen or polyester fabric to give a transparent lining where there are important features on the back of the painting.
Photographs and written records will provide full information for any future conservators so that their treatments may be as safe and as efficient as possible.
Keeping the back visible: striplining and edge reinforcement
Canvas degrades - but often important information is on the back of a canvas. The edges of the canvas are the parts which are physically pinned to the wooden stretcher. They suffer from abrasion and damp, and from the stresses of being constantly pulled over the edges of the wood by the response of the canvas to its environment. When they tear, the canvas loses tension, and cracking in - and losses from - the paint layer occur.
When this happens, the turning edges may be reinforced. This is not appropriate in all cases, but can be a useful means of postponing the major intervention of lining. It is also possible to apply an almost transparent lining when this becomes really necessary. A range of fabrics is used, usually secured with Beva 371 Conservation Adhesive.
When a picture has brittle or missing turning edges, but there is an interesting or important feature on the back such as an inscription or another painting, striplining can be the solution. By using the extra width of added canvas strips, and by tailoring a frame for the purpose, almost all of both the back and the front of a painting can be viewed.
