PAINTINGS

We are sensitive to paintings as significant historic artefacts whether they are of great artistic merit and monetary significance or sentimental or social historical value. Museum standard practices, materials and ethics, accompanied by appropriate documentation and photography, can be expected by both heritage and private clients. We work on paintings from all Schools but we specialise in British art from c.1500 to the present, with particular expertise in Portraiture and 19th - 20th century landscapes and marines, notably oil sketches on paper and board, works by John Constable RA, the Norwich School and the Newlyn and St Ives Schools (19th and

20th c.). 

We carry out museum-standard lining and re-lining of canvases and other structural treatments, including emergency tear repairs, on our own premises. We have experience with paintings on wood from late medieval panels to 19th c. commercially-prepared supports. Increasingly, unvarnished 20th c. paintings need remedial structural treatments, surface cleaning and adjustments to framing for their long-term preservation. This is particularly critical as 

20th c. artists' materials often lack the quality and longevity of earlier works. This, combined with 'modern' painting techniques, makes these paintings especially vulnerable to natural ageing and daily environmental fluctuations.