Cleaning Old Watercolours

[pichousepreston]

Does anybody know of someone who can restore a couple of Victorian watercolours? They both are on paper that is stuck onto old, non acid free board (all probably done at the time of painting.) They have a dark stripe down the middle of each one about 1" wide, presumably from when an old plywood back fell to bits. They are about 16 x 10" image size. The customer mentioned some sort of 'gassing' process???

[David McCormack]

Not that far away from you, I have recommended Richard Zahler to my customers before, he is in Bentham Lancashire:
http://zahlerartrestoration.co.uk/about
http://www.studioarts.co.uk/zahler.htm
He has previously restored work by artists such as John Ruskin and Beatrix Potter

[prospero]

Sorry don't know a restorer, but I've seen this stripey business on a few old pics. It's from the days before plywood when they used solid wood backing. The better ones have thin boards glued along an edge to make a continuous board, but some have lots of separate bits. This leaves gaps, and the stripes are always in register with the gaps. Looks as though the old 'strawboard' they used for mounting goes bananas when exposed to the atmos.

Good Luck.

[pichousepreston]

Thanks David. I'll pass him on to my customer