Week Eight: Summary of the Cleaning Process

Hello, today I would like to summarize the cleaning process I have been carrying out during these two last months on the Bishop Saint with Donor.
	Right now you can see the painting in its bare cleaned state. The discolored varnish and much of the overpaint has been removed, which reveals the old paint losses. At the same time, all the areas that are indeed original are now fully apparent. There are paint losses in many areas of the painting; especially along the joints where the wooden planks meet and at the bottom.
	The round losses near to the joints are screws added from the front during an aggressive restoration done before the painting was bought by the Cleveland Museum of Art. The screws secure the panel to four wooden planks added at the back.
Because the painting has suffered from many previous restorations, the materials to be removed were very different. This required using a range of cleaning techniques: from solvents to remove the varnish layer and some of the more recent retouches, to solvent gels for the oil-based overpaint and even a scalpel and very fine sand-paper for some of the excessively protruding old infill material. Now the cleaning stage is almost finished and what is left to do is the "retouching" or "inpainting". By this, the losses will be disguised and the unity and legibility of the image will be restored. Before retouching, the painting will be protected with an initial layer of varnish. Then, the areas of loss will be infilled with gesso so that they are at the same level with the original paint layer surface and finally the retouching will be carried out with reversible materials. This is a long process that will take me some months to complete. As soon as there is a significant change in the aspect of the painting I will let you know with another video update. See you then.

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