Such masterful use of surface texture is difficult to see when paintings are viewed in the diffuse light of a museum or gallery, but it would have been very obvious when the painting was displayed in a relatively dark room with a small window.
Reconstruction of a Dutch flower painting
The painting is signed J. Van Os fecit on the stone ledge beneath the bunch of grapes. Jan van Os (1744-1808) became the Director of the Academy at The Hague and is known to have exhibited twelve paintings – mostly flower pieces – at the Society of Artists in London between 1773 and 1791. The painting was given to the Fitzwilliam Museum as part of the Broughton Collection in 1973.
The painting was copied as part of the final year of the Institute’s three-year post-graduate course in the Conservation of Easel Paintings. The intention was to reconstruct the artists’ methods rather than the finished appearance of the painting and evidence of all stages of production was therefore left visible.
The panel
The original is painted on a single piece of mahogany (787 mm x 587 mm) with the grain running vertically. The panel is 10 mm thick with a 30 mm bevel to 5 mm at the edge.
When the painting was reconstructed in the 1990s it proved impossible to find a piece of mahogany of the same quality. The copy was therefore made (to the same dimensions as the original) from two mahogany boards, joined with animal glue. Joining boards with animal glue was an established practice.
The panel was smoothed and prepared with size (dilute animal glue) and three layers of chalk in animal glue. When dry, the brushstrokes were removed by sanding to give a ground layer with a thickness of less than 0.5 mm. Equal volumes of lead white and chalk were then ground in cold-pressed linseed oil and two layers (thinned with oil and turpentine) were applied across the whole of the ground.
Underdrawing
Jan van Os’ preparatory drawing was copied and transferred by pencil onto the layer of lead white and chalk. In places, the original underdrawing was visible to the naked eye because the paint had become more transparent with age (for example, in the bunch of white grapes). In other areas, the underdrawing was made visible with Infrared reflectography.
The original underdrawing was necessary because not all the flowers and fruit were available at the same time. Jan van Os planned the composition in pencil and painted each element as it became available. Some fruit and flowers would have been painted from life, and others would have been copied from studies. The drawing is very detailed and was followed quite faithfully in the paint layers. No signs of mechanical transfer – pouncing, stencilling, etc. – were evident and there were no geometric construction lines.
Detail from the original; showing underdrawing visible through the paint, around the edge of some of the grapes
Learn to Paint Flowers Quickly
A fun and accessible guide to painting flowers in watercolour with step-by-step exercises. World-renowned artist Trevor Waugh reveals the secrets of painting flowers in watercolour in this fun, easy-to-follow book.
More details
| Material | Hardback |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 15.75 x 1.5 x 20.32cm |
| EAN/ISBN | 9781849945226 |
| SKU | 12089612 |
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