Restoration of Icons and Gold Grounds in Paris
An icon is not a painting, and it is not restored like one. The panel stands for the Cross, the linen marouflaged to it for the shroud, the gold ground for uncreated light: nothing on it is decorative, and nothing is arbitrary.
To that is added a difficulty of material. Egg tempera never becomes altogether insoluble, even after centuries, and the gold is laid on a bole and a size that water takes straight back up. An icon is a painting that has never stopped being able to wash away.
What À L’Atelier takes on
Split, opened or insect-damaged panels
Wood moves, splits along the grain, and the battens hold it until something gives. The support is consolidated on both sides before anything else: until it is stable, no work on the paint makes any sense.
Lifting and losses in the tempera
The chalk-and-size ground grows brittle with age, and the paint layer comes away from it in patches. Reattachment comes first, and is carried out with reversible materials chosen for that work alone.
Darkened varnish and grime
The olifa and the varnishes laid on over the centuries oxidize until the image closes altogether: faces go dark, the gold disappears beneath a brown veil. Reduction proceeds in stages, after testing, and stops where the work asks it to.
Gold grounds and water gilding
The gold on an icon is not mended like the gilding on a frame: it is laid on bole and size, acutely sensitive to water, and the least repair shows. Losses are reintegrated in the spirit of the original, without regilding what still holds.
Losses and retouching with a needle
Losses are filled, then the color reintegrated — sometimes with the finest brush, sometimes with a needle. That is the price of giving faces and drapery back their legibility, with no telling where the original leaves off.
Iconostases and liturgical ensembles
An ensemble is treated as a whole: the icons are taken down, brought in, then reinstalled on site and in accord with one another. À L’Atelier has carried out this work on the entire iconostasis of a Paris church, icon by icon.
Work carried out
Real commissions, photographed as they came in and as they left.
Worth knowing
Can I clean an icon myself?
No — and it is the most important advice on this page. An icon is never cleaned with water: a damp cloth, a sponge or a household product will swell the binder and carry the pigment off with the grime. The gold, laid on size, goes faster still. The only thing you may do at home is dry dusting, with a very soft brush.
The icon belongs to a parish and is in liturgical use. Is that a problem?
On the contrary, it is the usual case. The schedule is settled with whoever is responsible for the church, the work is insured for the whole of its stay, and both the condition report and the photographic record are handed to the parish.
Should every trace of age be removed?
No. An icon carries the wear of kisses, of candles and of centuries, and that wear is part of its history. It is stabilized, the image is made legible again, and there it stops: what belongs to the life of the object is kept.
Talk to me about your work
The condition report and the estimate are free of charge at À L’Atelier, and commit you to nothing. Describe the work — artist, support, period, dimensions — and its condition, and we will arrange a time.
Tuesday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. — by appointment only
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