Layers of yellowed lacquer have been painstakingly removed from a John Constable painting of the Waterloo Bridge to reveal new details from the early 19th-century Thames skyline and a clear blue sky.
The painting – the largest created by Constable – had been dramatically transformed by the conservation treatment, said Sarah Maisey, a senior relief curator at the National Trust who undertook the work.
Experts spent more than 270 hours removing several layers of poorly yellowed lacquer that had blurred and blurred the details of The Embarkation of George IV from Whitehall: The Opening of Waterloo Bridge, 1817.
“There had been some previous tests that showed that this painting would respond really well to paint removal, but it has been a particular pleasure to see the quality of the improvement,” Maisey said.
“There were challenges. It had been painted and varnished at various stages, so one had to make sure that the solvents used to dilute and remove the lacquer layers did not also affect the paint layer. We are happy with the final result.”
Constable, who mostly painted pastoral scenes, is believed to have been influenced by Canaletto’s depictions of water competitions in Venice. The painting shows the royal barge and other vessels on the Thames, which are about to depart for the opening of Waterloo Bridge, which is in the background.
Constable is believed to have been present when the bridge was opened by the Prince Regent, later King George IV, on June 18, 1817. In 1942, it was replaced by a modern concrete structure.
During the Victorian era, the view, which Constable painted, was transformed, but St. Paul’s Cathedral – seen in the distance behind the bridge – has been visible for the last two centuries.
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John Chu, a senior curator of paintings and sculpture at the National Trust, said: “Constable’s painting of Waterloo Bridge, full of splendor and color in city life, is a stark contrast to the quiet country scenes he is more famous for, such as. as The Hay Wain.
“This large-scale depiction of modern events and the London metropolis was a major departure at this point in his career.”
The painting was never exhibited during Constable’s lifetime and remained in the artist’s studio until his death in 1837. It passed through several hands before reaching its present home, Anglesey Abbey in Cambridgeshire.
After the conservation work, the painting has returned to hang in the monastery’s library, where panels and shelves are made of timber salvaged from the piles on the first bridge when it was dismantled in 1936.