Restore a 60 year old Egg Tempera Painting

[pinnerite]

It is mine. I painted it in around 1955. It is a portrait of The Queen. It was never hung but eventually stored in our attic.

At the time I was painting quite a bit but could not afford a decent surface. I recall that this was on a piece of corrugated cardboard from the side of a Players' cigarette packing case. I used Dulux undercoat to surface it I recall.

I think that I gravitated towards egg tempera because it meant that the brushes could be cleaned with water.

I would now like to restore it and give it to one of my patriotic daughters now living in abroad. I think she would be the one that would most appreciate it.

So I retrieved it only to find that it had warped and that one 'streak' of the paint had cracked revealing a bit of a mess. The dark background has also faded on one side.

I plan to glue the whole thing onto plywood to keep it flat and then to restore the paintwork. The problem is that egg tempera is not stocked anywhere nearby but most shops sell acrylics.

Could I use acrylic for this?

Sorry to be so long-winded.

[Chris Hogg]

My late wife was a well-qualified artist and would have been able to answer your question. I recall her mentioning egg tempera occasionally

- she may even have used it - but mostly she painted in oils or acrylics.

Egg tempera is made from egg yolks, and unless a preservative is added, it goes off fairly quickly. But I guess you know that. ET paints are very easy to make at home, but you do need the right powder pigments, which you may not have, but I guess you know that as well. Examples of 'how to do it' :

My wife used to get her artists supplies from Fred Aldous, and from Dryads; I don't know if either still exist. She used Rowney and Windsor-and-Newton paints, some of which she ordered directly, some of which she got from a local art shop, but I think they were mostly oils and acrylics.

I wish I could be of more help, because it would mean she was still with me.

[whisky-dave]

Can't you make or mix your own using eggs, I saw someone do this on the Repair shop, it does take a bit of skill obviously but if you;re an artist it shouldn;t be too difficult to get a reasonable result.

Perhaps you can look through some episodes to find similar restores.

Failing that email or ask the repair shop to take it on.

[Martin Brown]

Fred Aldous is still going strong and is online and now has part of the store upstairs. It used to be down dodgy stairs in the dark cellars under Lever St in Manchester. They also have a shop in Leeds.

Not sure if they have anything suitable for egg tempura.

[Nick Odell]

Eggs-actly that. One of the things about egg tempera is making a lasting pigment out of available resources so mixing it up is just a matter of following an easy recipe using common things as people have done for centuries. You've probably already got everything you need.

Don't throw the egg white away! If you are not going to use it to make meringues or blend it into the icing for the Christmas cake, it will make an eggs-elent varnish to lay over the tempera. That's the way harpsichord soundboards were painted and then preserved. And lute soundboards were simply coated with nothing more than a thin coat of egg-white.

Nick

[Brian Gaff (Sofa)]

I cannot help but wonder if an informal visit to one of the many restoration companies around might bear fruit. Many are looking for big commissions but if its just to help an artist fix their own work, you might be surprised how many will share a few tricks of the trade as long as you are not going to set up in competition with them. Brian

[Thomas Prufer]

sells pigments, dry, with suitability for various binders inluding egg tempera listed. The most reasonable are a few Euros/quid for a pile, often 100g. They'll mail to the UK, and there's a UK distributor.

They live off collecting things that are common, but maybe in common in far-off places, and then selling them. Or things that were once common, like lampblack, or just finding colorful rocks and ball-milling and sieving them...

Thomas Prufer