Big pictures offer challenges far greater than an enlarged surface area and outsize dimensions, and this publication documents situations faced by both conservators and curators when working with paintings ranging in scale from unusually large portrait miniatures to panoramas.
Solutions for the problems presented by pictures too large for lorries, unable to fit through windows and doors, and beyond the dimensions of any lining table are described in detail, discussing work in a range of formats, including friezes, theatre cloths and ceiling paintings. These projects demonstrate how large-scale works of art can be moved, treated, displayed and stored safely and efficiently and reveal the ingenuity, flexibility and audacity required when dealing with big pictures.
Preface
Foreword by Jim France
Conservation of large miniatures on ivory
Alan Derbyshire
The conservation of large-format works of art on paper
A. Jean E. Brown
The conservation and reinstatement of the Lonsdale Frieze, Mount Stuart
Clare Meredith and Colleen Donaldson
Installation of L'Escargot, by Henri Matisse
Calvin Winner
Cy Twombly: big pictures in a travelling retrospective
Michael Duffy
Touring Robert Rauschenberg's 32-ft-long painting Barge
Gillian McMillan
The problem of the seven foot door
Ian McClure
'The unloved painting' by Guido Reni
Christine Leback Sitwell
Using aluminium for a stretcher: a practical assessment
Jacqueline Ridge, Dave Jones and Jack Warans
The challenges of storing a collection of theatre backcloths
Nicola Costaras and Stephen King
The Battle with Trafalgar
Valentine Walsh and Richard Pelter
A cold-lining technique for large-scale paintings
Kate Seymour and Jos van Och
The structural treatment of a series of large dynastic portraits of Louis XIV and family on-site at Chateau de Balleroy, Normandy
Jim Dimond with Warwick MacCallum
The restoration of Caravaggio's The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist
Marco Ciatti
The Battle of Meanee by Edward Armitage, 1847
Claire Chorley
The Defeat of the Floating Batteries off Gibraltar by John Singleton Copley: history and display
Gerry Alabone with Louise Dandy
The Defeat of the Floating Batteries off Gibraltar by John Singleton Copley: a painting waiting for a wall
Sally Woodcock
