To Restore or Not To Restore?…. That My Fellow Art Travelers is the real question!

I was doing my usual stumbling around in the barren halls of eBay USA this morning when I stumbled upon what to my eye appeared to be a “wreck” of a painting. The image had apparently been cut down from a larger painting, repaired by adding more canvas, restored somewhat amateurishly by god knows who with god knows what, and relined. My mind immediately went to the many videos I have watched on YouTube of Master Conservator Julian Baumgarter as he goes through, in his mild mannered, learned, philosophically constructive way, of what is wrong with a Fine Art painting, and how he plans to fix it, all in a totally reversible way. I said to myself, this needs to be repaired, that needs to be scrapped off in a laborious process, this needs to be removed, all because Julian Baumgartner has produced some educational and very instructive videos on the ways he and his very talented crew go about cleaning and restoring beautiful works of Art. Here is the canvas that I spotted this morning (Artist and Restorer unknown):

----------------------------------------------------------

My conclusion regarding this painting is?……..…. No, in my mind, it just isn’t worth restoring and certainly not worth the asking price if the actual restoration costs more than the painting will ever be worth (baring a detailed Provenance making attribution to some well known and well represented artist). Having experienced the costs of art restoration I can assure you perfection does not come cheaply!

Go on over to YouTube and look up those great videos by Baumgartner Fine Art Restorations. You will enjoy every minute and if you are not very careful, you might even learn something very important about Fine Art Restoration from a Master Fine Art Restoration Expert!