Our evolving understanding of untouched furniture surfaces

Magazine Antiques, Oct, 2000 by John T. Kirk

Of course, it is important to remember when assessing a dark finish that the present color may well be all or in part the result of an original or a later varnish that has darkened as it aged, the oxidation of oil that was applied after the piece was made, accumulated dirt, or all of these nonoriginal features. [9] Dirt on a painted piece almost always means leaving it alone, for any cleaning normally diminishes the quality of the surface, but what about high-style pieces? Should they ever be cleaned of dirty varnish so that one can more dearly see the intention of the maker?

An interesting case is the block-and-shell kneehole dressing table [10] in Plates VII and VIIa, which is attributed to Edmund Townsend because of its similarity to a piece in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston that retains Townsend's paper label. When the piece illustrated here was included in the sale of the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Adolph Henry Meyer held at Sotheby's (New York) in 1996, the auction catalogue not only observed that it "Retains its original patina," but also pointed out that it was "apparently the only example of this rare form which has survived with its original finish." [11] Undoubtediy there is original finish under and mixed with the surface dirt. As in cleaning an oil painting, carefully removing the dirty finish would reveal the quality of the wood and the dressing table's true patina. Clearly, no private collector would remove this distinguishing characteristic from the dressing table at this point. Only a public institution with no interest in ever selling the piece could consider r emoving the dirty varnish. If it is ever cleaned, certain areas not easily visible must be left intact for the benefit of future researchers trying to answer new questions about early finishes.

Thus, what to clean is really a two-part question. Painted pieces usually should not be touched because their surfaces are like those of early bronzes, where the original finish has become pitted, encrusted, and discolored, and we generally accept that it cannot be altered. In most cases it is even inadvisable to remove the finishing coat of varnish given to many painted pieces to make them brighter and easier to clean: in most cases the paint, varnish, and dirt cannot be separated from one another and leave a surface worth looking at. On the other hand, objects that were originally covered with a clear varnish to enhance and give a gloss to beautiful wood can be cleaned and revarnished without diminishing the maker's final aesthetic statement. (Undoubtedly, one of the reasons the cleaning of varnished pieces became unfashionable is that in the past many objects were ruined by drastic overcleaning.) Museums will probably take the lead in such cleaning, and there will undoubtedly be an outcry against it, as h appened when restorers began to remove much of the famous golden light from Rembrandt's paintings by cleaning away yellowed varnish. [12] The present high value of a dirty varnish on beautiful wood will diminish when connoisseurs begin to want to see clearly the maker's original choice of materials and design features and the glowing patina the wood has achieved.