Before and after: cleaning a dress

This is a gorgeous, large, almost antique German painting, that had to take a lot of damage and was treated wrongly. It even had some holes near the corners from pins that were used to hang it or pin it against the wall. The piece is somewhat of a sensitive artwork because it breathes ‘nazi art’ .

The smoke residue was cleaned for as far as I could get it off.. Her face, mainly her cheeks, show some craquelé that I did not find troubling enough to restore. It did not meddle with her face in color or appearance. However, no one likes to see a powder blue shiffon dress looking as filthy as it did. That was in short the train of thought that led to this decision.

Perhaps the painting was placed above a smoking chair or near a fire place. After intensive cleaning and some retouching, the painting looks fresh again. It was framed in a new frame and is up for sale, inquiries here

Applying a gel made of Carbopol in which solvents can be dissolved. In this case Ammonia. Ammonia works great in removing the yellow lacquer with soiling. The Ammonia is heavily diluted. Here you can see that I have applied it on the yellow patches on the dress. It takes some time to do its job.

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