“He put the picture on an easel in north light and
demonstrated his method. With a large cotton swab wrapped
around a chopstick and a simple mixture of acetone and
mineral spirits, he proceeded to remove varnish evenly, in
overlapping circular movements, without persisting in any
one area. He moved continuously, paying equal attention to
the darks and lights, and never followed contours, which he
said would make them ‘…look like cutouts.’ He never broke
through the discolored coating to make a ‘window,’ a practice
he condemned as an expression of the restorer’s vanity,
done only to produce a dramatic photograph. Like most
restorers, John could tell when the painting’s entire surface
was evenly cleaned by the feel of the paint when the slippery
varnish is gone. When this state was reached, he brushed on
a temporary varnish. The painting as an image could then be
evaluated and discussed.”
One of Brealey’s central concerns was that the authority
of “science” was supplanting a fundamentally humanistic
approach to art conservation. Recognizing that artworks
inevitably change with time (pigments altering their hue
and fading, oil paint becoming more transparent), he invited
discussion over how to preserve what remains of the essence
of a masterpiece. In 1984 John Brealey was chosen directly
by the Prado Museum in Madrid (criticized for bypassing the
protocol of a “select committee” of experts) to clean one of
the great monuments of Spanish painting: Las Meninas by
Diego Velazquez.
Before he even set foot in the place, antagonism that a mere
Englishman would dare such a thing was ferocious. Except
for a few hardliners, opinion rests that he succeeded.
Please note the correction from an error made in the previous issue of Art
Chowder to appear in the March/April issue. The name printed as “Rachel
Farrell” should have read “Rachel Ferreli”.
i Dianne Dwyer Modestini. “John Brealey and the Cleaning of Paintings,”
Metropolitan Museum Journal, v. 40 Essays in Memory of John Brealey (2005)
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/john_brealey_and_the_clean-
ing_of_paintings_the_metropolitan_museum_journal_v_40_2005
ii M. Kirby Talley Jr. “An Old Fiddle on a Green Lawn: The Perverse Infatuation
with Dirty Pictures”: Metropolitan Museum Journal, v. 40 Essays in Memory of
John Brealey (2005)
iii The elder Pliny’s chapters on the history of art; tr. by K. Jex-Blake p. 135
https://archive.org/stream/cu31924031053550/cu31924031053550_djvu.txt
iv Sheldon Keck. “Some Picture Cleaning Controversies: Past and Present,”
Journal of the American Institute for Conservation 1984, Volume 23, Number
2, Article 1 (pp. 73-87) http://cool.conservation-us.org/jaic/articles/jaic23-02-
001.html Sheldon Keck was one of the real Monuments Men during WWII and,
together with his wife Caroline, was a leading pioneer in the field of paintings
conservation. His concise survey of hisoric cleaning controversies has been very
helpful in putting the issues into historical perspective.
v A very interesting and thorough “History of Condition and Treatment” can be
found in Arthur Lucas and Joyce Plesters. “Titian’s ‘Bacchus and Ariadne’” Na-
tional Gallery Technical Bulletin Volume 2, which can be found at https://www.
nationalgallery.org.uk/research/technical-bulletin/technical-bulletin-volume-2
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