The conservation treatment of a large varnished watercolour by Tasmanian colonial artist Frederick Strange (c.1807–1873)
- Resource Type
- Authors
- Mar Gomez Lobon; Jucara deFarias Quinteros
- Source
- AICCM Bulletin. 31:44-52
- Subject
- Exhibition
Painting
media_common.quotation_subject
Museology
Depiction
Conservation
Art
Art gallery
Colonialism
Conservation treatment
Queen (playing card)
Visual arts
media_common
- Language
- ISSN
- 2204-4183
1034-4233
The conservation treatment of the watercolour View of Launceston looking east from Cataract Hill c.1859 by Frederick Strange presented some important challenges for Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery conservation staff. It involved combining the skills of the paper and paintings conservators to apply a relatively new technique for varnish removal from paper, assessing the risks of the proposed treatment, finding an adequate new mounting system, and meeting an exhibition opening deadline. The thorough examination of the work and conservation treatment uncovered a complex history of successive restorations and revealed a large amount of previously unseen detail in the depiction of Launceston’s colonial streetscapes.