Chemists from the University of Warsaw, in collaboration with the National Museum in Warsaw, have developed a new method for the restoration of paintings painted on canvas. The special organogel allows the wax-resin mass from past restoration work to be completely removed from canvases in a safe manner.

In the opinion of the creators of the product, there is currently no other solution in the world which would make it possible to clean works of art of the wax seeping through them in such an effective, safe, non-invasive, comfortable and quick manner.

Many paintings have been subjected to conservation treatments in the past, which involved reinforcing the original canvas by applying an additional layer of new material to the back of the canvas using a mixture of wax and resin. This method was used from the 19th century until the beginning of our century and was particularly widespread in northern and central Europe and South America.

With the passage of time, the wax had a negative effect on the original colours of the work – darkening and attenuation of colours, softening of contrasts and a previously absent dark yellow dominant appeared in the paintings. For this reason, there are tens of thousands of works of art in the world today whose current colours diverge from the originals and which are awaiting restoration.

For three years, Polish scientists and museum professionals have been searching for a solution that would make it possible to permanently remove the wax-resin mass from old canvases and thus restore the original colours. The result of their work is an organogel based on a polymer network reinforced with nanostructures. It contains a specially formulated solvent mixture that dissolves and removes the wax-resin mass and does not adversely affect the remaining layers of the painting.

Laboratory tests were successful, and tests performed on the original paintings proved that the new method can be successfully implemented in professional conservation work.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński