Marianne North (1830-1890) travelled extensively and was a prolific painter of flora. After a successful exhibition of her paintings in London she commissioned and funded the building of a gallery to display her work in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in 1879. She chose to hang the artworks in the unique pre-Aesthetic style and the walls were filled with paintings from the floor to the top of the first storey. She was an inspirational woman and her efforts have been immortalised in this Grade II listed building that houses over 800 of her paintings.
Upon receipt of funding from the Heritage Lottery, much needed conservation and restoration work could begin on the building and its contents. In early 2008 Plowden & Smith were invited to join the Marianne North Gallery project to compliment the Royal Botanic Garden’s paper conservators. What was initially a helping hand to work on this overwhelmingly large project of 832 paintings, plus fixtures and fittings, soon escalated to involve Plowden & Smith in the conservation, restoration and re-installation of the collection.
The project included conservation of:
- 21 paintings
- Stencilled coving
- 449 ebonised frames
- 3 doors with maroflaged paintings and their surrounds
- 246 decorative wood samples
- Teak benches and display stands
- A marble bust of Marianne North
- Commissioned technical analysis of the paintings
The project was split into two main tasks; the conservation of the decorative elements and paintings on canvas, led by Senior Painting Conservator/Restorer Rachel Witt, and the conservation and replication of the furniture and doors and gallery re-installation, led by Senior Furniture Conservator/Restorer Piran Harte.
The paintings on canvas, doors and their surrounds proved to be challenging. Cross-sections of paint were analysed to aid decision making and to help understand the artist’s painting methods, materials and techniques. Marianne North was not a formally trained artist and this is highlighted in her choice of materials, for example a canvas stamp was found on the back of a painting which showed that it was executed on a type of fake leather. This unconventional painting technique caused problems during surface cleaning as several cleaning agents commonly used to clean paintings and remove aged varnishes proved to rapidly undercut and dissolve the black ground. The oil gilding on the door surrounds were also extremely solvent sensitive and there was the added complication of underlying dirt which had been trapped behind the varnish.
The decorative wooden sample panels were also an interesting collection to work on. Typical damage included shrinkage splits, lifting and missing veneer and damage to the shellac polish, which seemed to have only occurred on particularly resinous veneers. A student from the London Metropolitan University worked with our furniture conservators to discretely sample the panels to analyse them in order to verify the species for the gallery labels.
The most challenging part of the project came late summer when the Gallery was working towards its October 2009 opening – the hanging of the 832 paintings. Plowden & Smith had not been involved in the de-installation of the gallery, so worked with a photo-geometric survey developed by the Royal Botanic Gardens. A new hanging system had also been designed and was so far untested outside of this gallery installation. One of the aims of the hanging system’s design was to prevent theft, and in particular opportunistic theft. It also created an air gap behind the paintings to allow air to circulate. Therefore, all work had to be hung from the floor up. All of the frames sit very tightly together so the order of the re-hang had to be carefully organised.
