T
to describe the techniques used to
conserve panel paintings in Britain from the seventeenth century to
the first quarter of the twentieth century. It is probably impossible
to write a continuous history of painting conservation practice in Britain.
Restorers before the middle of the twentieth century rarely kept detailed
records. Such records as survive often note only invoices and payments
and offer, at best, insight into the provenance of particular paintings.
While references to full-time restorers exist from the seventeenth century,
artists also worked regularly as restorers, and on occasion artists would
direct the work of restorers. Structural conservation of paintings on both
canvas and panel was increasingly carried out by artisans and was consid-
ered so routine as to be unworthy of detailed discussion. In the literature
on paintings conservation, a tendency to emphasize restoration—that is,
the cleaning and retouching of paintings—undergoes steady development.
Through the nineteenth century, improving their status became a matter
ofincreasing concern to restorers. It was only in the 1930s that the begin-
nings of the museum conservation profession as we know it began in
Britain, with treatments proposed, reported, and discussed. This develop-
ment coincided with increasing awareness of practices elsewhere in
Europe as well as in the United States.
Some idea of the development of structural conservation tech-
niques before the 1930s can be gained first by the study of the backs of
paintings, where the marks ofprevious treatments can sometimes be seen.
Notes and other entries in inventories of collections can also provide clues.
Second, it is fortunate that the Royal Collection has a series of inventories
and papers with many references to restoration of the collection, starting
with the inventory made by Abraham van der Doort, who was appointed
the first sur veyor of paintings by Charles I in 1625. From these sources, at
times informative and at times tantalizingly obscure, comes the most com-
plete picture of the treatment of paintings in Britain from the first quarter
ofthe seventeenth century.^1 Third, information can be found in other docu-
mentary sources, such as artists’ manuals, works devoted to conversation
written by conservators, reports of commissions set up to inquire into
aspects of conservation, and the occasional published record of a conser-
vation treatment.
Unlike in the rest of Europe, relatively few early British panel
paintings have survived in Britain. The destruction of church furnishings
during the Reformation has resulted in only a few chance survivals where237Ian McClure
History of Structural Conservation of
Panel Paintings in Great Britain