THE CARE OF PICTURES AND PRINTS. 93 



is extremely dirty, then it is as if some other person had glazed unin- 

 telligently over the whole work, so that the original intentions of the 

 artist are as much falsified in one direction by dirt as they are in an- 

 other by taking the finish from his picture. The reasonable rule, then, 

 would appear to be to clean pictures that really need it, but to avoid 

 overcleaning with the most scrupulous care. 



The removal of varnish is in some cases rendered absolutely neces- 

 sary by a foolish practice that was occasionally resorted to by our 

 fathers the practice of tinting the varnish itself to give what they 

 wrongly imagined to be tone. It was believed that anybody could 

 varnish a picture ; and, by one of those amazing delusions that tak,e 

 deep root in ignorant minds, it was thought that all the colors in a 

 picture could be improved simultaneously by spreading one and the 

 same transparent color over them. 



The question whether it is right to paint upon pictures when re- 

 pairing them may be better understood by considering one or two par- 

 ticular cases. I remember a house where the children were so much 

 indulged that they were allowed to shoot with pop-guns and other 

 engines at the family portraits, and they did this with such energy as 

 actually to produce holes in the canvas one large hole, for example, 

 in the face of a lady who had been beautiful a hundred years ago. 

 Now, if that picture came to you by inheritance in that state, the ques- 

 tion about repainting would present itself to you in a practical form. 

 You would have to determine whether the face was to remain in its 

 damaged condition or to be repaired. To leave it damaged would be 

 to destroy the effect of the picture on everybody's mind, because 

 everybody would think of the hole, and how the accident happened, 

 instead of thinking about the beauty or history of the lady or the 

 merit of the painting. It seems, then, that it would be reasonable to 

 have the picture repaired, and yet it is indisputable that to do this 

 must be to introduce the work of another man. Everything, then, de- 

 pends on the skill of the restorer. In such a case as that the restorer 

 would begin by carefully laying together the jagged threads of the 

 canvas, so that none should project, and he would probably put a back- 

 ing to support them ; then he would cover them with white-lead up to 

 the level of the painted surface, and, when that was hard and dry, he 

 would carefully color the white patch so as to replace what had been 

 destroyed. Artists of considerable technical ability, but who have not 

 the knack of producing salable pictures, sometimes attain such skill 

 in the coloring of these patches that it becomes impossible to distin- 

 guish them after restoration, and the picture has all the appearance of 

 an uninjured work. I remember some portraits from an old French 

 chateau that were all dirt and holes ; in fact, to call them dirty rags 

 would scarcely have been an exaggeration, but the owner had a value 

 for them, and wisely placed them in the hands of a very experienced 

 painter. This artist knew a good cleaner, to whom he confided part of 



