Hello,
The mirror frame that I am restoring from the antique dealer is an extremely rare piece. It is a Masonic mirror with an eye shape, (one of the Masonic symbols most frequently used is “the eye that sees all”). The mirror is about two hundred years old from Shrewsburry, England. We know this is where it is from because it is written on the back of the frame. It was originally gilded with gold leaf. The mirror was very badly damaged, many parts of the moldings and miter joints were unglued and seperated. Also there are some losses of parts of the moldings in the form of pearls. These losses were produced by the movement of the broken miters and joints. There were 4 different layers of paint aplied over time, which were black, brown-red, green and ivory. The first step was to glue all the pieces and miter joints, taking care to trim to the same level, so that the frame itself looks like one piece of wood. This is very difficult. The next step is to remove all 4 layers of paint. This is the stage I am at now. As I am removing the 4 layers of paint it has revealed a fine gilding that was the original finishing on the frame. Unfortunately this original gilding is too damaged to save.
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Hello, Three years ago my friend Silvia from Argentina took me to Granville Street from the foot of the Granville Bridge to Broadway, "Gallery Row". It is home to many of Vancouver’s best Art Galleries, antique stores, and furniture shops. She knew that I love antiques and Fine Art. Thanks Silvia. Of that nice walk I remenbered a very particular piece in one of the antique shops, a gorgeous wood carving gilded and polychromed sculpture. The sculpture was in the end of the shop up some steps and it was framed in an arch on the wall painted in a dark red color, it was a dramatic and beautiful exhibition. Last Friday I went back to the antique shop, the sculpture was there but on this occasion I went for another reason ... the owner wanted to meet me and ask me to do the restoration of two antiques frames, one small and another much larger. I have picked up one of the frames already (the small one) to restore. It is a rare piece with odd shape. The other, quite large, I'm currently calculating my estimation. I am happy to return to work restoring old frames. I would like that you could watch a slide presentation for the National Museum of Sculpture in Valladolid, Spain, that my friend Conchita sent me few days ago. This is an absolutely gorgeous view of polychomed statuary housed in Spain. (I'm sorry that the text is in Spanish but I think this is worth). I hope you enjoy these as I did. ![]()
Hello,
These are examples of some of the different colours and tones of gold leaf, (yellow, orange, red, champagne, lemon,....) Please notice how similar and subtle the different tones can be. Even though the colours and tones are slighty different the end result of a project will be very different depending on which color or tone is used. |
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