Glazed and unglazed paintings in a fire

[Dave]

A customer of mine is an art broker with clients worldwide. He worked for Sotheby's for almost a decade and somehow we got on to the topic of whether paintings should be glazed or just varnished. He commented that if a painting is glazed he would prefer to see glass instead of acrylic glazing. I queried him on this stating that at least with acrylic you wouldn't have to worry about physical damaged from glass breakage and he told me a story.

It seems that a client of his with a relatively large collection of paintings had a fire in his home. The paintings that were varnished were easily restored by cleaning and re-varnishing. The paintings that had glass only required being taken apart and lightly cleaned. However, the paintings that were glazed with acrylic were destroyed because the intense heat melted the acrylic to the paintings.

Never dawned on me that this could happen.

Just an interesting story... Obviously the potential for glass breakage causing physical trauma to the painting is more likely than intense heat causing the acrylic to melt, but I thought his story was worth sharing.

 

[Dave]

From a little quick research it appears that the melting point of acrylic sheeting is around 400 degrees F.

 

[MaJa]

Wow, thanks Dave! Gives you something to think about. Good topic to bring up to the TruVue guys in Vegas.

 

[Jim Miller]

There is no way to protect art on display from all possible hazards. Soiling, airborne contaminants, and accidental mechanical damage probably are the most common hazards for paintings on display, and glazing generally is the best prevention.

In this situation, as in most others, framing with glass provided the most protection. Laminated glass would also prevent damage from shards in the event of accidental breakage, which probably ranks it as the best glazing choice. Incidentally, it is also the most costly.

In the event of a fire, smoke and water generally cause more problems than high temperatures. The temperature in one part of a room could be hundreds of degrees hotter than in another part of the room, depending on the exact location of the flames.

... The paintings that were varnished were easily restored by cleaning and re-varnishing. The paintings that had glass only required being taken apart and lightly cleaned.

If these had been exposed to temperatures hot enough to melt the acrylic glazing on other paintings, they would not have been so easily restorable. They were probably in a cooler area, and might have been spared from severe damage from the worst of the smoke and water, as well.

However, the paintings that were glazed with acrylic were destroyed because the intense heat melted the acrylic to the paintings.

These paintings were probably in the hottest part of the room, where the heat or flames would have completely destroyed an unglazed painting, and probably would have severely damaged a painting under glass.

There is no perfect protection for art on display, but in nearly all situations, unglazed paintings are the most vulnerable to damage.

 

[Bandsaw]

We work with a restoration company that deals with fire and flood damage for insurance companies. The one thing we have noticed is that fire damage to frames is widely varied as conditions in a fire are so variable. Smoke, heat, and then water from fire hoses and yet much art in frames can often be recovered. In our experience glass is the best protection. We have only had 2 frames with acrylic come to us from fires. In both cases the plexi as the heat rose on the outside of the framing bowed outwards away from the art. Some melting but hanging out the front of the frame, not melted to the art. But in a different fire anything could happen.

 

[RParrish]

Acrylic is highly flammable and should not be used on anything above a fireplace mantle.