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Restoration of Jacob Ruisdael's painting The Herd at the Watering Place Restorer: Maria Shulepova This landscape by the celebrated 17th-century artist Jacob Ruisdael is a vivid example of using the artistic devices typical of Dutch art at that period. The Herd at the Watering Place was painted on a panel made up of three horizontal oak boards. The work came into the Laboratory for Restoration of Easel Paintings in 2005. It was covered by a thick, strongly yellowed, uneven layer of late varnishes of various dates with compacted grime between the layers that considerably distorted the qualities of its colour scheme. In the course of previous restorations areas where changes were made to the artist's painting had been toned in. The restoration toning had darkened. With time irreversible changes in the paint layer manifested themselves. In those places where the artist applied paints with a large quantity of binder, the pigment absorbed by the oil lost its colour (chiefly in the depiction of the sky). In the course of restoration the areas where the original painting was flaking off were reinforced, as were splits in the panel, while the restoration toning was removed. Across the whole surface the thickness of the varnish was reduced and evened out. The painting was covered with fresh varnish. Areas of loss were painted in, areas where the artist's paint layer had altered were tinted selectively restoring the chromatic and chiaroscuro modelling of forms. |
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