RESTORING PICTURES

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 82, 16 August 1948, Page 8

RESTORING PICTURES

MELBOURNE ARTIST MANY TREASURES SAVED An artist unique in Victoria is Miss Stephanie Taylor. She. not only paints pictures but for 15 years she has been restoring them as well.- Miss .Taylor says you never know what you will find once you get to work on an old painting. A client once asked her to restore a family portrait painted by Sir ■Godfrey Kneller. It was a mass of brown paint—a. previous restorer had used varnish with a glaze containing a brown paint. It was also , badly crinkled. But under Miss Taylor’s treatment, it revealed lovely soft greys in the background, and touches of green, almost jade, on the bodice of the frock.' Melbourne has no school of restoration, but Miss Taylor says we could do well with" one. “If it were not for my restoration, we. would not have that very fine Vanclyck, “Madonna,” in our National Gallerv,” she said. Misv Taylor gets . commissions from other States. A recent one from Adelaide was to restore a portrait of a child, a work attributed to Sir Joshua Reynolds. . “It Was a lovely little head,’ she ' find!. “The canvas was so worn t 1 ’ .t r was almost transparent m }'■■■■■ and the paint .way peokng-.