Title: Lawrence of Arabia Scene painting (Suez Canal)

Artist: John Box (production designer)

Media: Watercolour, gouache and black pastel highlights and graphite pencil

Paper: Commercially-produced illustration board with a surface of thick wove paper, cream colored, with a smooth-grained surface.

 

This artwork presented various structural and aesthetic condition issues, including engrained dust and dirt, staining due to water damage and mould, large tears going through the paper and board support, heavy application of oxydised rubber cement, and flaking media. The condition was very unsafe for handling, due to the major tears and weak structure overall.

Cat pawprints were found on the watercolour and the old matboard. Since it belonged to the Peter O'Toole collection and the actor had an orange cat named Claude, we suppose that the pawprints were Claude's and should be conserved. 

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The project is still ongoing as I need to make

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• Surface cleaning and further mould reduction was performed using a smooth brush and cosmetic sponges, avoiding the areas of graphite and black pastel. Surface cleaning in the blue watercolour was not pushed further due to a lack of stability in the pigment.

• The old matboard was removed in one piece. Residues of adhesive (probably rubber cement) and paper layers were reduced and removed mechanically with a scalpel.

• The old matboard was consolidated and flattened. It is to be conserved in the same enclosure as the watercolour.

• The flaking gouache highlights were consolidated with a small brush using 4% Aquazol in ethanol. The flaking might have been caused by the deterioration of the binder caused by an inadequate storage environment and the dimensional instability of the support.

• The tears were realigned and repaired using wheat starch paste. Gaps at the back  were infilled with several layers of Japanese paper.

• Lightly humid pieces of blotter were used to reduce the staining line across the watercolor.

• Created a new matboard with archival materials and rehoused the old matboard in a Mylar pocket with a white board as a support. The watercolour was stored back with the old matboard in a paper folder.

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