Red Haired Maiden is a painting by David Lloyd Glover which was uploaded on September 26th, 2013.
Red Haired Maiden
A portrait by French artist Louis Perrey. Undated but likely 1870's period. Perrey was known as a portrait painter of the romantic... more
Title
Red Haired Maiden
Artist
David Lloyd Glover
Medium
Painting - Oil On Canvas
Description
A portrait by French artist Louis Perrey. Undated but likely 1870's period. Perrey was known as a portrait painter of the romantic genre.
I received this restoration project with the painting under glass in a heavily aged and damaged gessoed frame. The glass enclosure actually harmed the painting by creating an environment that extensively shattered the painting. The glazing technique employed by the artist was done to a high gloss finish. The varnish coating was so yellowed that details like the dress, the skin tones and hair were such that the girl was heavily tanned wearing a brown dress. The hair showed no signs of the red tones.
The canvas was removed from the stretcher bars and the years of grime were painstakingly removed. The thick gloss coating had to be completely removed and using q-tips in small areas the varnish was taken away. What was revealed are the colors you see here. Unfortunately the painting was cracked like a hard boiled egg. In order to stabilize the painting, the cracks were filled using a minute brush applying color and filler under high magnification. Care was taken not to overpaint areas of the painting to preserve most of the artists original work.
Finally, multiple coatings of varnish were applied to once again return the look of a high gloss glass finish as the artist originally intended.
Uploaded
September 26th, 2013