The varnish removal of Poedua is progressing slowly and painstakingly and we are now almost halfway through this important part of the treatment. As we have mentioned before, removal of discoloured varnish can have a dramatic effect on the overall balance, colour and depth of a painting. Because discoloured varnishesRead more
Slice of Heaven has been on open for a year now. This means that some of the light-sensitive paper and textile exhibition items have had their full quota of light exposure and have to come off display. This includes this majestic coatee, pictured above, that Premier Richard Seddon wore toRead more
Hello everyone, we are back with our fortnightly updates on the treatment of John Webber’s Poedua. We are progressing slowing with the cleaning of the painting. At this stage, the cleaning involves the varnish removal and the removal of overpaints (later additions by a previous restorer). Today’s blog post willRead more
I first got into studying biodiversity because I wanted New Zealand’s plants and animals to be looked after better. New Zealand’s indigenous biodiversity is not in great shape. A lot of my research at Te Papa – describing new species, distinguishing and mapping different species, and determining how populations and speciesRead more
Hello Poedua followers! Mel and I have taken a break from our treatment of Poedua for a while in order to focus on some other paintings conservation commitments. In the past two months we have been kept busy working on a loan of 23 paintings for the exhibition Painting New Zealand which isRead more
It started as a trickle and soon developed into a flood of devastating proportions. On 11 July 2011 I received an email enquiry from a family at Waikanae seeking help with identifying an unusual seabird that they had found dead on their driveway. It was a Salvin’s prion, a not-too-unexpectedRead more
Te Papa’s curator of terrestrial vertebrates Dr Colin Miskelly tells the second part of the unfolding story of the emperor penguin that went where none had gone before (at least in the age of digital media). Colin accompanied Department of Conservation staff to Peka Peka Beach on the morning ofRead more
If you have been following Mel and Katherine’s Poedua treatment blogs you may be surprised to read another’s voice on this one – a voice from the edge as it were. I’m Matthew O’Reilly, Framer of Paintings here at Te Papa. My previous blogs were quite some time ago now. KatherineRead more
In the paintings conservation lab, we have been working away steadily on the varnish removal of Poedua. Every now-and-then we come across a painting where this stage of the treatment is relatively easy, where a simple organic solvent solution is effective in removing the varnish without any effect to anyRead more
The advent of GPS in cell-phones and car navigation systems has done a lot to render this technology accessible for a variety of users, devices are now only 10-20 g in weight, and can cost as little as $100 a piece. Satellite telemetry was first used to study flying birdsRead more
Now that the painting has had its layer of surface dirt removed, the next step in the treatment is the removal of the varnish layer. A lot of the principles that we talked about with surface cleaning, also apply to the removal of varnish layers. Therefore, prior to beginning it’s importantRead more
In our last post we discussed the process of testing to identify the most appropriate cleaning solution to remove the surface dirt layer from the painting. After finding the best cleaning solution for the painting the surface cleaning can begin, but we always carefully monitor our progress to ensure thatRead more
Now that we have cleaned the back of the canvas we can look at surface cleaning the front of the painting. This is a separate procedure from the removal of varnish and overpaints and is completed first because surface dirt is the first layer encountered. The reason we remove the dirt layerRead more
After completing our technical examination of the painting, taking lots of pre-treatment photographs and writing the condition report, we write a treatment proposal for the painting. We consider the current condition of the painting and what we would like to achieve with different treatments. Our proposal is discussed with theRead more
Poedua is an oil painting on stretched canvas, meaning the composition is painted on a fabric support which is stretched to keep it evenly tensioned, over an expandable wooden stretcher. Canvas supports began to replace traditional wooden panel supports from about the 16th century and were the most commonly used typeRead more
