AIC's 42nd Annual Meeting

Almost a quarter of the Walters Art Museum’s approximately 2500 paintings are on wooden panel supports. These range from the early 12th up to the 19th Century and come from Northern and Southern Europe, Ethiopia and Thailand. A number of the panels are in a fairly pristine state but most have received a variety of structural treatments by many different hands over the years. Some had undergone major work in Europe prior to entering the collection, while others received treatments at the Walters both before and after the introduction of climate control to the buildings; including the infamous “wax tank” treatments. Damage to the substrate caused by these treatments, sometimes in combination with inherent vice and climate issues, often had a harmful effect on the paint layer resulting in paint loss. Several of these treatments have resulted in increasingly challenging problems for the conservator as we look for practical solutions to structural problems with panel paintings.
Surveying the Walters panel collection allows for an historical overview of structural treatments to panel paintings, both in Europe and North America, and illustrates the evolution of more conservative methods of treatment concomitant with the development of better climate control and a new philosophy that recognizes the importance of the wooden support to the artwork as a whole.