Sealing Watercolour

[lise]

We are framing a large watercolour/acrylic that the customer wants without glass. It is painted on a 1/4" thick sturdy hardboard. It is over 75 years old. What would I use to seal this with? I am thinking just a matte spray.

 

[Framerguy]

Lisa,

What type of damage are you dealing with on this piece? It is 75 years old and I am assuming that there is a valid reason for wanting to seal it after all this time.

If it is in prime condition with no damage to the surface, I wouldn't seal it at all. If it is mostly acrylic you could seal it as you would any original acrylic.

But I am not sure at all what effects the varnish would have on that portion that may be straight watercolor. You don't want to find out after the fact!

This sounds like a question for our resident conservators.

Framerguy

 

[JPete]

Any watercolor 75 years old is not an acrylic painting.

I wouldn't attempt to do anything to it, but mat and glazining(glass or acrylic) and frame.

It may also be gouach (opaque watercolor).

 

[MatFramer]

If it is that old, I wouldn't touch it with anything. I would probably be pretty emphatic in a nice way with the customer that it must be protected with a double rag mat and UV glazing. Watercolor is done on paper. There is no way to protect that paper from air pollutants.

 

[Grumbling Mike]

I find when clients ask for framing without glassit is often their ignorance and after some education the Anti Reflective Glass option can often win them over,even create more business replacing all that regular glass they hate so much.
If they dont want to protect the work why bother coating it with acrylic? (it is more visible and less protection)

 

[Rebecca]

Good advice here Lise!

Varnishes can protect traditional oil paintings because they sit on top of a continuous paint film. But what would the point of spraying varnish onto a watercolor? The varnish would soak into the paper, probably altering the appearance, but it wouldn't protect either paper or paint from dirt etc.

I can understand not glazing some types of contemporary art on paper (I'm not advising this, but artists are strange beasts). But a 75 yr old watercolor would almost certainly have been intended to be displayed behind glass.

Rebecca

 

[Reynard]

Tell this customer that you won`t do it and that any framer who will do something like that to a watercolour needs their backside swiftly booted up and down the street.

The customer is not always right.

 

[GUMBY GCF]

It is painted on a 1/4" thick sturdy hardboard. It is over 75 years old

Okay but has the hard board been gessoed and is it cardboard or is it more like a masonite?
Let me think were they using acrylics 1927? Has it been sealed obnce already? Sorry just would like to know more. I have seen watercolours sealed with different things over the years.
Rebecca was it not somewhat common to put a thin coat of gum arabic over watercolours?

 

[lise]

It appears that it is masonite and I don't know if it has ever been sealed. It was pressed against the same piece of glass for all this time. The paint resembles watercolour but there are some thicker strokes that you just don't see with watercolours. It's funny but on the back the artist has written No. 88, but I know its an original.

 

[Rebecca]

Hi James -

You know your post about sealing watercolors, and the gum arabic wash got me thinking and of course you're absolutely right. I don't see very many of these in the studio (like maybe 2 or 3 in 15 yrs. and I completely forgot. Thanks so much for bringing this up.

So, I went to a really good reference, "Wash and Gouache, A Study of the Development of the Materials of Watercolor", by Margorie Cohn conservator at the Fogg Museum, 1977 and there it is.

The practice seems to have been started because of viewing conditions at the Royal Academy's first home in Somerset House. Watercolors were considered inferior to oils, and given secondary placement in the anteroom, lit by side windows. Glass covered watercolors were "practically invisible in the glaring reflections. Artists and manual writers objected to the glazing of the watercolors for this reason and recommended varnishing in its stead."

Varnishing also made the watercolors look more like oils, so it gave them added importance.

"Early varnishing techniques, which used naturalresins...were adapted for watercolor by being laid over a priming of several coates of thick, warm isinglass" (fish glue made from the swim bladders of sturgeon) "'to prevent any part of the varnish from penetrating or coming in contact with the paper.' Egg white wasw also recommended as a vcarnish in early manuals, although it was appaently an application of egg white the ruined a watercolor painting by Burne-Jones in 1893.

By this date watercolor paintings such as those by Burne-Jones, which attempted to imitate oil paintings, incorporated so much added gum and glycerin that theywere susceptible to serious damage from varnishing techniques that had earlier protected more simply washed sheets. Accordingly, nineteenth and early twentieth century colormen developed proprietary varnishes and fixatives especially for watercolors. Most of these coating agents seem to have had a shellac, sandarac, or damar resin base, with the purest "extra pale" resins being selected. Later in this century synthetic resins were adapted for the same purpose, with nitrocellulose ("Duco") varnish recommended in the 1930's and vinyl and acrylic resins superseding it more recently."


I still wouldn't recommend anyone but the artist varnishing a watercolor though - regardless of the material used, it would definately change the paint saturation and appearance of the piece.

Rebecca