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Before and after: oil painting with owl
This wonderful Dutch oil painting had some holes in the canvas. These were mended with Kozo paper and a starch based glue. Gesso was used to fill up these holes and level up to the paint. It could then be retouched and reframed in a custom made frame.
Small holes mended, reframed -
Before and after: antique painting with flowers
This is a lovely little oil painting made by a relatively unknown female artist named van Bueren. The painting suffered from paint loss. I cleaned the surface, filled in the missing paint with gesso over the course of a few days so I could build up the gesso to match the painted areas. I need less than an millimeter but it literally has to add up to make the restore job as unnoticeable as possible. After the procedure, the piece was laquered.
Oil painting by van Bueren on painters board, some paint loss occurred. 
Before and after 
The end result -
Before and after: oil painting on wood.
Before and after: Bernhard, oil on wooden panel. 
A big chunk of the paint on the roof was chipped, leaving a deep gap behind. This is an oil painting on a piece of wooden board. The wood was exposed to moisture and horizontal cracks started to appear, in line with the grain of the pressed wood. Some cracks were a bit wider, even causing the paint to flake around the roof area.
Firstly, the work was cleaned. After that, I filled in the missing paint around the roof area with a gesso chalk mix. I layered the mix until the desired thickness was accomplished. Then I painted over the gesso mix with acrylic paint. I also filled in some of the horizontal cracquele and sealed it by giving the piece a mat new lacquer, keeping the paint sealed and the painting protected.
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Before and after: Impressionist still life with fish
Cleaned and applied a new lining, reframed This is a lovely piece of art made by Micha Landt. She made it during the Second World War when there was a shortage in food.
The canvas of this oil painting was in a rough shape, to be honest I have never seen it that bad. It was torn and rippled around the edges. I had to mount the piece onto a new piece of canvas because there was no other way to reapply the canvas to its stretcher.
I glued the canvas on a new piece of canvas with the help of weights and heat activated glue. I then could clean the painting and give it a new layer of lacquer. A new frame was used to complete this neat piece of art by Micha Landt in 1943. -
Before and after: early 19th century painting
Cleaning a painting with smoking paraphernalia
This historical significant still life painting has gotten a faded appearance through the years because of damage to the brittle, 19th century shellack lacquer. The lacquer fractured in many microscopic small fragments, comparable with a fractured mirror, causing the light to fracture, creating a misty haze. The reason that this happened remains uncertain, it could have something to do with the recipe that the artist used or perhaps the oil paints drying time was not respected causing the lacquer to break.
Usually it goes down hill from there because people tend to move a painting like that to a different part of the house, perhaps the attic or the cellar, which only makes the damage more extensive.
The old lacquer was was removed, damages and scratches were repaired and retouched and a new lacquer of lacquer was applied. The work instantly looked fresh, while still maintaining that classic antique appearance. Also notice the fantastic ‘Baardkruik’ in this scene.
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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
before and after cleaning 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.
The intensive cleaning process
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Before and after: bucket oil painting with paintloss
This wonderful minimal painting by Meuldijk had missing paint and some scratches on the paint. I forgot to make extensive photo’s but manage to take this picture where you can see the gesso applied to the painting. The painting was later retouched and relacquered.
Removed the loose parts, filled in with chalk gesso mixture and retouched. -
Before and after: unknown still life painting
Lessend the deep cracquele, cleaned the painting and reframed it.
The thick old lacquer was removed, this did not only removed the yellowing but also lessend the deep cracks. I re-streched the canvas and reframed the painting.
