Redgrave had most of the conservation work carried out by par-
ticular restorers. Morrills of Duck Lane submitted accounts for work from
1863, largely for lining and parqueting. The firm continued to work for the
collection well into the twentieth century, recommending cradling as late
as1946. The company continued in trade until 1981. In the nineteenth
century it had a wide practice and worked for the National Gallery as
well as for private collections. The firm regularly stamped its cradles and
favored quite radical thinning of a panel before the cradle was applied.
The glued members often vary in width to cover splits and disjoins.
Redgrave also employed restorers to treat the fronts of the paintings, as he
was the first surveyor who didn’t work on the paintings himself, although
he was an artist of considerable talent (Millar 1977:189).
Redgrave also employed as a restorer Henry Merritt, who pub-
lished a book on restoration in 1854 entitled Dirt and Pictures Separated.
Although he briefly discusses the transfer of panel paintings, citing The
Raising of Lazarusby Sebastiano del Piombo in the National Gallery,
London, he is chiefly concer ned with distancing the professional restorer
from the “professors of picture-restoration... numerous in London,
familiarly known by the sign hung out at their doors; generally, an old por-
trait, one half clean, the other half dirty, as a specimen to convince the
unwary connoisseur that the proprietor of the shop can restore pictures”
(Merritt 1954:64–65). The publication of this book coincided with the pub-
lication in 1850 and 1853 of the reports of select committees appointed to
inquire into the management of the National Gallery. William Seguier,
first keeper of the National Gallery beginning in 1824, had also worked as
a restorer for the prince regent and had been appointed surveyor, cleaner,
and repairer of the King’s Pictures in 1820. His work on the National
Collection passed without comment. However, the work done in 1852 by
his younger brother John provoked criticism. While the evidence gathered
by the committees is of great importance in displaying the widely differing
views on cleaning and the terrible climatic conditions within the galleries,
structural work is hardly mentioned (Bromelle 1956:186–87; Anderson
1990:3–7). Charles Eastlake, the Gallery’sfirst director, r ecommended
Francis Leedham as a skillful panel repairer. William Morrill took over
Leedham’s studio in 1861. Eastlake avoided controversy by having pur-
chases in Italy cleaned and restored before importing them, often employ-
ing the creative talents of Molteni in Milan (Anderson 1990:6). Merritt
worked on The Incr edulity of Saint Thomasby Cima da Conegliano when it
arrived at the National Gallery in 1870, but only removed varnish under
the supervision of Eastlake’s successor as director, William Boxall (Wyld
and Dunkerton 1985:42). He worked with the artist George Richmond on
the restoration of the portrait of Richard II in Westminster Abbey in 1866.
They were observed by George Scharf, who had access to their reports on
the progress of the work—“an elaborate daily record of operations kept
by Mr. Merritt” (Scharf 1867). Unfortunately, these do not appear to have
survived. The panel itself required little work: “The picture is painted on
oak, composed of six planks joined vertically, but so admirably bound
together as to appear one solid mass” (Scharf 1867:28). Merritt and
Richmond removed layers of what was undoubtedly overpaint and, more
controversially, removed the raised diaper pattern in the background,
which they considered a later addition (it was, in fact, original). However,248 McClure