Emma Cox reports on the challenges of treating a huge cartoon drawn by Daniel Maclise RA in 1858/9 depicting the meeting of the victorious Generals Wellington and Blücher after the Battle of Waterloo.
Introduction
In June 2012, a gathering of curators and specialists met in an East London warehouse, where a very large work of art on paper was stored. The cartoon had been packed away unseen since 1972 when it was last displayed in the National Portrait Gallery. An exhibition programme was planned for the work to be displayed at the Royal Armouries in Leeds (June 2015) and later in the year at the Royal Academy (RA). As one of the RA paper conservators I was asked to come along to view the work and give an opinion on its current condition.
As we walked into the viewing area, we were all amazed at the sight that greeted us: ten panels standing on chocks and leaning against the walls with the most amazing, accomplished drawings attached. The sheer scale alone took our breath away with each panel measuring 338 cm high × 141 cm wide. The total width of all ten connected panels measures nearly fourteen metres or over forty five feet.
The temporary studio with cartoon panels stacked around the walls
Condition Issues
Each panel displayed most of the following condition characteristics:
- Surface dirt and abrasion of media
- Undulation of the paper where the primary support was insufficiently pasted or lined to canvas
- Damage to the vertical edges, where the paper was originally cut
- Paper losses, especially to the outer edge of the cut sheet where its brittle nature is exposed in loose and lifting fragments
- Discolouration of the paper giving a brown hue
- Varying degrees of mechanical damage over the design (multiple splits and tears)
- Badly damaged areas which have been retouched with a tempera paint or similar gesso-like glue and pigment mix (often over quite large areas) and passages with surface ‘blooming’ or pastel retouching (giving a greyish matt appearance to the design)
Our art handlers walking the panels into position
A Brief History
When this remarkable cartoon was originally purchased by the RA after Maclise’s death, it was displayed as an entire design on a stretcher with a glazed frame. But with the rehang of the Galleries during the 1920s outsize works such as the Maclise cartoon were regarded as a problem: ‘we suggest it be offered to some military institution or failing its acceptance by such a body, that the cartoon be rolled up and stored, and the glass sold’ (Royal Academy Annual Report 1922). Between 1928 and 1935, the Cartoon was lent to the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, where it was housed in their Gymnasium. A letter dated 18 August 1937 from F.J. E. Raby at HM Office of Works records what was then done to it:
"The Cartoon was removed from its old stretcher frame by cutting it into ten pieces along its original paper joints. The ten pieces were then pasted on separate panels of “Sundeala” board, which were then each fixed to strong deal frames, which were afterwards varnished. Edges or other places where the paper was broken away were repaired by inlaying new paper and retouching with chalks. A few places in the sky which were badly discoloured have been retouched with tempera colours. The hat worn by Blücher is shown as a cocked hat on the cartoon. It was altered presumably by Maclise by sticking thin paper over the original hat and then drawing the present one. This required repasting and retouching."
For a paper conservator, this 1930s’ report is an interesting read, for the principal objective in the 21st century was similar: to try and consolidate the friable edges of the cut paper sheets and any other areas where lifting paper fragments are noted.
Georgina Whiteley surface cleaning with a Wishab sponge and the granule mix
Preparations
A subsequent meeting was held at the warehouse in May 2013 with curatorial staff from the RA, Royal Armouries and Palace of Westminster and additional fellow paper conservators including Catherine Rickman, Alice Powell and myself. This time we viewed three of the panels and discussed the practicalities of conserving them. Everyone agreed with the premise of my original conservation assessment and all we now needed to do was pool our ideas into a workable action plan. Catherine contacted additional personnel and the RA began sourcing a useable space and equipment.
The options open to us were not straightforward. It was not possible to work on the panels at the warehouse so they needed to be transported to the Royal Academy. It was no longer acceptable to pack them face to face as had been done, so individual travel frames needed to be made. The backs were very grubby with surface dirt and we requested that each panel be carefully vacuumed from behind before transportation to the RA.
Art Handler Charlie Clarke taps in nails: there were more than a thousand
Fortunately the Keeper’s Room in the Academy Schools was vacant, but only for a very limited time. We were given access to the space for just a fortnight in August, time to set up the room with tables, lights and other equipment and then complete the entire ‘hands on’ conservation itself in ten working days.
On 11 August 2014 a team of five paper conservators began work: Catherine Rickman ACR, Alice Powell, Tanya Millard, Mari Watanabe and myself, along with two art handlers Charles Clarke and Paul Schneider. Eight strong trestles were set up in two groups of four to support two panels lying horizontally on each. Two panels were always worked on simultaneously. The remaining panels were located around the room with protective boards in front of them.
Surface Cleaning
The surface cleaning tests had revealed that it was safe to remove the dirt without lifting any medium. This fact had initially surprised me, but the predominantly used black ‘French chalk’ with touches of red and blue chalk, were remarkably well fixed to the paper. We think that when the drawing was lined onto the canvas backing, everything became quite wet and the chalk pigment particles sank further into the paper. We did wonder if a fixative or size had been used but there was no direct evidence to support this theory. More investigative tests are needed. Shellac had been applied to the deal frame panels and this was clearly visible around the outer edges when viewed in UV light.
To clean the drawing we used a mixture of non-gritty manufactured draft-clean ‘Skum-X’ draft cleaning powder, ground art gum eraser and draft cleaning sponge. The commercially produced powder that we had purchased soon ran out and no more supplies were available in the country so we needed to come up with an alternative fast.
Using a couple of coffee grinders (one motor packed up during proceedings), we were able to make our own powder, using a combination of the above ingredients. This was applied to the drawing using a Wishab pad and brushed off using soft goat hair brushes.
Starting on the Damage
By the time we had successfully cleaned the fronts and smoke-sponged over the backs, it became clearer how damaged the surface was and how much work was required to treat all ten panels.
We began repairing the broken, damaged and dented edges of each Sandeala board (a lignin rich, commercially prepared board for notices and hobbyists) and the drawing paper layer. The primary support paper had been originally of good quality, probably an off-white cartridge type of paper. By the 1850s machine made papers were available in continuous rolls and with large widths. We built up any losses in the Sandeala board using either cotton mount board or cellulose powder blended with EVAcon R adhesive (ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymer emulsion) mixed with pigment.
Detail of nail heads catching the light
Often a layer of brown toned Chinese paper was attached to the surface before placing toned Japanese tissue on top. Water soluble Indian inks and/or combinations of gouache and watercolour were brushed onto strips of tissue and dried, giving variations in tone from pale grey to charcoal and from an ochre-mustard to deep chocolate brown and matt black. The adhesive used was wheat starch paste. Missing sections were traced to shape and cut on a light box with a stylus.
Bringing in Reinforcements
During the second week we were very happy to welcome Georgina Whiteley and Clare Reynolds ACR to the team. The sheer number of repairs required, coupled with the fact that we needed to be visually consistent across all ten panels, meant that we needed more hands on deck to achieve the required ‘finish’ in the time allowed.
During treatment: a poultice on the Duke of Wellington’s thumb
The old tempera retouched areas were largely situated over badly damaged splits and holes in the drawing and the rather thickly applied paint had deteriorated over time. Methyl cellulose poultices softened the old repairs sufficiently to remove them quite cleanly, revealing that parts of the drawing were completely holed through to the canvas layer underneath. Often the drawn paper layer had entirely gone. The resulting cavity needed to be built up again using layers of the previously toned archival paper or kozo fibred Japanese handmade tissues. The final top layer would be selected to blend in with the general tone of the surrounding design layer (a very nice example can be seen over the Duke of Wellington’s thumb).
Meanwhile, some of the lozenge shaped blisters or bubbled undulations within the drawing sheets, for example in the sky region, which were very noticeable in raking light, were encouraged to relax and flatten by the application of a heated spatula at 80ºC above a piece of silicon release paper and water-dampened Gore-Tex membrane. Creased and cracked tears with a tendency to delaminate were also worked over with the heated spatula and 2% methyl cellulose in distilled water. This helped with their consolidation.
Over a thousand pin tack nail heads were located across of the panels and these stood out from the design layer. They were also distracting since they reflected light. Charlie fabricated a special nail punch with a small concave head that could be used to accurately tap the nails further into the board. Toned pieces of Japanese tissue were scrumpled into little plug shapes and adhered to the nail head. This technique was very good at mimicking the appearance of the soft, chalky medium and creating a less broken up appearance within the detailed drawing passages.
Some repairs and new patches were softened using watercolours and Stabilo CarbOthello pastel pencils (reversible with a dry latex sponge). No attempt was made to restore missing drawn areas.
After treatment. Wellington’s handshake with the Prussian Marshal Blücher is at the heart of the scene
Summary
Although the time frame allocated to such a big project was not standard practice, our conservation remit was a fairly standard and relatively straightforward one: to stabilise the physical condition of each panel where possible; to remove the more aesthetically distracting old repairs and address the long-term storage considerations. We do hope that our treatment has gone some way towards achieving those ends, but more importantly perhaps, that it has enabled the sheer magnificence of Maclise’s draughtsmanship to shine through clearly once again, in the bicentenary year of the Battle of Waterloo.
This article was based on a talk given at the Daniel Maclise: The Waterloo Cartoon Study Day, held on 6th November2015 at the Royal Academy of Arts.