Norman Rockwell - Case Of The Missing Inscription

this video is brought to you by audible home of audible plus with tons of content that entertains inspires and informs while the conservator is primarily focused on the object its issues its preservation and treatment that doesn't encompass the entirety of the conservator's capacity and skill set oftentimes clients will turn to conservators when there are questions about a painting that need to be answered simple questions such as what varnish was used or what type of issues are currently present or potentially will become present in the future to more complex issues having to do with the history and provenance of the painting and in some cases mysteries such as the one we face today with this norman rockwell painting and the question that needs to be answered is where did the inscription go for when the painting was originally displayed and photographed it bore the inscription in the lower right hand corner to the good family of so-and-so your friend norman rockwell it was documented it was then returned to the family then briefly back to norman rockwell himself then back to the family where it was held and then exhibited several more times over the years and finally donated to a museum that has contracted with me today to discover why in its current state that inscription is no longer present while i fell in love with art and norman rockwell because of the paintings and the images as a conservator i'm fortunate enough to learn the stories behind the artwork the who the what the where and being able to fall into a story and lose myself is a magical experience and touches all of my emotions and while the stories i can relay are pretty awesome they pale in comparison to the thousands of offerings on audible that will captivate and transport you deep into your imagination and wrap you up with all the emotions and audible plus connects you to tons of content that will inspire entertain and inform you like maybe an audiobook on norman rockwell i mean he's such an important american artist but how much do you really know about him or any artist for that matter the stories behind these creators are stranger than fiction and they're all true and now is the best time to try audible plus because with the holiday offer you're getting the best deal of the year it's only 4.95 a month for your first six months and after that it's still only 7.95 a month so go to audible.com baumgartner or text baumgartner to 500-500 so whether you want to listen while you're working from home cooking exercising doing yoga or just indulging and getting lost in the magic audible plus is the best way to do it right and in case you forgot it the first time visit audible.com baumgartner or text baumgartner to 500-500 and like any good detective the work begins with observation and so using a loop i'm just taking a look at the signature and surrounding area that bore the inscription i'm going to make some notes on my observations and keep them for my report later on and i'm trying to just gather as much information upon first glance as i can because that first impression is extremely valuable without preconceived notions or without contamination i might see something that later on i could miss and so the simple act of observing a painting just looking at it and letting come to me what may is extremely important and once i've had some time with the painting i'll put it up on the easel and start photographing it and these photographs will provide references for my conclusions i'll document everything that i discover with a photograph and i'll take photographs of details areas that are curious areas that may tell me something about the painting and its life the story so to speak and there can never be too many photographs i'll make sure that just about everything i see gets recorded and while the photography thus far has been with visible light it is just the first of several suites of photographs i'll take ranging from infrared to ultraviolet and the infrared photography starts with halogen lights that will simulate the sun's natural radiation and while infrared light can be used to differentiate between pigments it can also be used to see through them and reveal under drawings or let's say an inscription that may have been painted over at some point and so less penetrative than an x-ray it's a valuable tool to peel back the layers of what we see i'm using a modified dslr camera with the infrared cut filter removed all digital cameras sensors are inherently receptive to a broad spectrum of light but to make them usable for the average consumer cut filters are placed across the sensor that blocks out ultraviolet and infrared light with those removed i can photograph the painting and absorb the infrared spectrum and after infrared comes ultraviolet photography and while infrared can be executed in daylight ultraviolet needs complete darkness once the painting is set up i will add several different filters to the camera and these will block out both visible light and the infrared spectrum focusing just on the ultraviolet with ultraviolet lights turned on i can darken the room and exit and set up my remote photography station and while ultraviolet light is commonly used to determine if there's any old varnish or retouching on a painting for the ultraviolet light will fluoresce any new pigments and that can be instructive in learning if anything has been added or removed now because i have to shoot in complete darkness i've tethered my camera to my desktop and i'm shooting from outside it's difficult to learn much about a painting with one suite of images but they can be combined and a lot more can be learned once i've finished with the uv photography i'm going to take the painting out of the frame to do a physical examination and that's going to encompass learning what type if any varnish is on the painting and while this painting is not here for a proposal for conservation i am not going to be doing any work on the painting learning if there is a varnish atop this painting can help me understand if there is anything sitting atop that varnish or underneath that varnish that is where did that inscription go and why is there a signature now in its place and is that signature original was it covered up before was it added is it on top of the varnish is it under the varnish all of these questions these data points will be assembled together for a final conclusion and as part of any examination i'm going to take apart the painting at least the backing board and the packing materials and photograph it as well one never knows what one will find behind a backing board and here we find several chalk marks and pencil marks that might have some meaning related to the exhibition and so those two will all be photographed i don't necessarily know what those mean but that doesn't mean that somebody else perhaps an art historian or the estate of norman rockwell doesn't and so it's incumbent upon me to document everything that i find and as i'm taking photos and gathering data points i'm thinking about what i've learned thus far and trying to assemble all of those facts into a cohesive narrative and try to understand why there's a discrepancy with the painting as it was originally displayed and as it exists now and that's really the goal to try to figure out where that inscription went now at the testing stage i want to find out if there is a varnish on the painting what it's composed of and if it is a top or underneath that signature because that would be a very key difference and so i'm just starting off with a very mild solvent and working my way up until i have solubility in that varnish i'll keep those notes and once i've determined that there is or isn't a varnish i'll move on to the next step and yes sometimes smelling the varnish can be very helpful in this case i'm fairly confident that it's a demar varnish that has yellowed over time and while this painting is not here for any conservation work boy do i wish it was just that little test reveals a really beautiful painting and after processing my images we can compare them with the photograph of the painting as it was during its original display and we can see the inscription in the lower right and then we can see it disappear and this is the photograph that i took earlier we notice the signature is present but the inscription is gone and as we transition to uv light we can see the signature fluorescing a bit but nothing to the left of that kitty cat and fire hydrant infrared photography reveals well not much there's nothing underneath the top layer of paint and so i'm starting to put together a hypothesis here we can see close up the pencil inscription and the pencil signature and as we transition to visible light photograph from today the pencil inscription is gone and a painted signature appears as we move into the ultraviolet photography we can see that there's no overpaint on the pencil inscription but that the signature is fluorescing a bit telling us that it is newer than the original paint and under infrared light we can see some pencil markings come through but just faintly as i put the painting back together what have i learned well originally the painting had a pencil inscription it was displayed and photographed as such it was then returned to the family to whom it was presented by rockwell himself for some reason the family then sent it back to rockwell and it was returned to the family shortly thereafter and then many years passed during which the painting stayed with the family until it was donated to the museum at which point there was no inscription but a beautiful red signature bearing rockwell's name and so based on what i have seen the pencil inscription was not overpainted nobody including rockwell himself covered it up and the signature is newer than the original paint but the signature is under the varnish so it is likely that rockwell applied it himself so what does this all mean and what is my conclusion well without knowing any facts for certain it's almost impossible to know exactly what happened but my belief based on the facts that i have discovered is that after the painting was returned to the owners after the exhibition and then returned to rockwell rockwell himself scrubbed off that pencil inscription the infrared photography shows faint traces of the pencil inscription still remaining but they're not underneath any layer of paint so rockwell didn't paint out the inscription nobody painted it out it was simply scrubbed off and we know that pencil lead can be removed with solvents soap and water even sandpaper so it is not surprising that it was removed fairly easily with very little trace evidence remaining i believe that then rockwell signed the painting and returned it back to the family now why the family wanted the inscription removed i have no idea perhaps they felt the painting was more valuable without it which may be true and maybe they wanted that bright red signature bearing norman rockwell's name for he was well known and fairly famous in his day as i start to put this painting back together and as i wrap my head around all of what i've learned i'm confident that nothing nefarious happened here no hanky-panky so to speak rockwell probably scrubbed off that signature and signed it and what is left what is confusing to the naked eye those faint traces of that pencil inscription are just that faint traces left by norman rockwell when he decided to remove him and so these facts along with my report will attach themselves to the painting and become part of its story and in a hundred years when somebody asks why does the signature fluoresce or gee i heard that this painting once had an inscription they'll be able to reference my report and learn the complete story of this norman rockwell painting and the missing inscription as always thanks for watching and for my patreons be on the lookout for the epilogue video answering your questions about this project and video coming up soon you

Channel: Baumgartner Restoration

Views: 459,289

Keywords: Baumgartner, Julian, restoration, ASMR, paintings, cleaning, scraping, repair, Art, fine art, conservation, painting restoration, old art, painting, painting conservation, oil painting, new again, restore, norman rockwell, rockwell

Id: ZknIZDRiKuI

Length: 16min 29sec (989 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 14 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/cbrad1713]

I think Julian's job is just inherently relaxing to an observer

[u/KennisonFarm]

if it has more than one add it ruins it for me

[u/crotchety_old_man]

I like the content but these all seem pretty intentional to me.