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If I could speak with Joseph Wright of Derby  today I would ask him, actually, to take up a brush  
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and to finish out the face the  way he originally painted it.
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I would ask him to use his magic and  have this picture shine as it once did.
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Welcome to my painting conservation studio. I am Ruth Cox and I've been working with  
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the Nasher Art Museum since  before it was the Nasher  
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way back when it was the Duke University  Museum of Art in the '90s and early 2000s.
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Today we've invited you into the studio to  take a look at this wonderful picture painted by  
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the Joseph Wright of Derby probably in  the mid–1750s-1760s at some point in there.
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It's a beautiful painting and, though, if we  were to display it in its archaeological  
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wholeness, meaning unrestored, it wouldn't  be very appealing for people to look at.
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So, as a result, all the restorations we did  were in order to bring it back as closely as  
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possible to how the picture would have looked  when it was painted.
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In this upper left quadrant  
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there is a very large tear that had become  prominent, it's actually an h-shaped tear in the  
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canvas, and it had been over painted by an earlier  conservator very liberally, covering much of the  
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tonality of this left background area. The face  of the image looked very raw and scrubbed; it had  
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cold areas and warm areas that  were unintended by the artist, and
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there wasn't a sense of cohesiveness between  the shadowed areas and more of the highlighted forms.
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Additionally the face had been cleaned  much further than the rest of the picture.  
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There were areas that had fallen into obscurity,  the most dominant was this very small
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still life of paper and drawing materials that  were in the foreground of the picture.  
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The sitter's proper left hand looked a lot  darker and was falling into obscurity  
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along with the sculpture. If you refer to other  pictures by Joseph Wright of Derby you can see  
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that he did a lot of work in finishing glazes  to give a real breath of life to his pictures.
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The first step in the treatment was obviously to  remove the painting from the frame when it arrived  
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in my studio and then dust it and clean off the  back so I could handle it without it becoming  
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a mess all over my studio. Then we  surface cleaned the picture to remove  
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any grime and dirt that would inhibit the  varnish removal solutions that I would use.  
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After the dirt was removed I worked on solvating  the varnish and carefully removing all of the old layers.  
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As the painting emerged from all the  layers of old restoration and discoloration  
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the three-dimensionality of the sitter  became more prominent. For instance, the hands  
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began to read much more clearly as  did the sculpture in the background.
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After the painting was cleaned we began  the structural work on the painting,   
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however, before the canvas could be  lined the tears had to be re-mended. 
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After that the fibers were actually rejoined and 
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the Japanese tissue could be used to bridge  the tear mend. After the painting was planar,  
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and the tear had been repaired, the next  stage was to actually affect the lining.
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The lining canvas was stretched onto an aluminum  platen which could heat up to 150 degrees  
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Fahrenheit and the painting was placed on top  of the lining canvas which had been prepared  
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with sheet Viva 371, which is a heat seal or heat  tack adhesive. After the painting had been lined  
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the painting then needed to be filled and  retouched. All of the losses in the paint film  
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were compensated with the gesso. After a varnish  was rubbed into the surface using a silk cloth  
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in almost a French polish manner the losses  of the gesso and fine pinpoint losses could be  
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under painted in watercolor. After the watercolor  underpainting was complete a full-bodied layer of  
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natural resin varnish was applied. Final retouching  could be done in a synthetic paint in order to  
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complete all the compensation work. One of the  tenets of conservation is that everything we do  
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should be reversible. That means that all of the  materials and techniques I used to conserve this  
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picture were done in such a way that they could  be undone without damaging the original picture.
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You now see the painting framed  and, though this isn't the  
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original frame that was chosen by Joseph Wright of Derby to exhibit this picture,  
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it is a period frame and fits the picture  stylistically and aesthetically very nicely.
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Now I'd like to tell you a little about how  we think this painting might have been painted.
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Joseph Wright of Derby was known to prefer a medium weight linen canvas as his  
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primary support. He would have started with  a canvas that would have been stretched onto  
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a stretcher. The first thing then was to stabilize  the canvas by infusing it with a light layer of  
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glue-size and that would be an animal high glue,   a rabbit skin. This is granulated rabbit skin glue.
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You can see it would be swelled in  water and then brushed in a liquid form  
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onto the canvas. The canvas was first prepared  with a glue-size and over that was applied  
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a layer of gesso. Gesso traditionally, if you  go back to the Middle Ages, was made with whiting  
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or a chalk or gypsum and rabbit  skin glue. By the 18th century  
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it's known that Joseph Wright of Derby's gessoes tended to be lead white with different  
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small fractions of pigments involved, probably  a little bit of palette scrapings.  
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But it was generally a slightly off-white color. it  was the first layer that was applied to the canvas  
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Joseph Wright of Derby most likely did not grind his own paints. They may have been prepared
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in his studio or he may have ordered them and purchased them from a colorman where he worked.
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The actual colors come from different materials. For instance, the red vermilions come from
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a stone, Cinnabar. This wonderful blue  that you see in Wright of Derby's jacket, 
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that most likely is a Prussian blue. Prussian  blue was first invented or discovered in 1704  
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when the experimenter was trying actually  to make a beautiful red and it turned blue instead.
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When an artist, let's go a century earlier, in the 17th century might want to make his paint  
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they would start by putting some pigment onto a  glass plate or most likely a grinding stone.  
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They would use a muller, this one happens to be  glass, but there were stone mullers as well.  
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It has a very fine frit or abrasion on both the back  face of the muller and on the face of the plate.
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When you ground the pigment with water to  begin with, you would disperse the pigment evenly  
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over this slightly gritty plate. In order to  get oil into the mixture you would, as the  
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water evaporated, slowly add more oil and grind and  grind. By the 18th century linseed oil was used, but  
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poppy seed oil was also a preferred oil for  lighter colors because it wouldn't discolor  
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as readily as linseed oil. The ground preparation,  which we think might be a double layer ground  
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in here, and then the first layers of true paint  after his sketch and the dead coloring were done,  
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I think, rather loosely. You can still  see in his face almost little blotches or  
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brush strokes of different shades of pink, yellow  and flesh tones. After he roughed in the  
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color scheme of cool and warm tones, he could  then add more layers of paint to create a unified surface.
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When done with the final body paint  and his glazing he could then wait another  
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six months to a year before a varnish layer  was applied. At that time dammar and mastic  
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varnishes were known, as well as other tree resins. You can see here this is mastic resin which  
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is collected from a tree specifically  found in Greece and in the Greek Islands.  
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Once the artist had finished painting the picture to  his satisfaction, the painting would have to rest  
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for at least six months or a year before a final  layer of varnish could be applied to the surface.
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When the painting came into the collection it was  thought to be a work by a French artist, [Joseph] Duplessis.   
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Through a great deal of research it was  
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thought to be more likely a product of Joseph Wright of Derby. I believe the technique in  
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which it was painted, the brush strokes, every  aspect of this work, supports that attribution.