Albert Bierstadt. American, 1830-1902
Echo Lake, Franconia Mountains, New Hampshire. 1861
Oil on canvas
Albert Bierstadt’s Echo Lake,
The 1850s, the decade that preceded the Civil War, marked a time of great adventure and exploration of the nation’s countryside. Throughout this period Americans began to notice the beautiful, vast, and large expanses of landscape the country had to offer. With this realization, artists such as Albert Bierstadt began painting large canvases in a grand style that required larger, more massive frames with several layers and moldings. During this time, ornaments were commonly made up of natural motifs. This is evident on the frame for Echo Lake, whose ornament is comprised of branches, leaves, twigs, and berries, as well as flowers. However, the fluted coves seen here would generally become more popular in the 1860s.During the 1860s, in the North, there was an accumulation of industrial wealth that went hand in hand with a growing demand for home furnishing and framed art. Most frames made at this time were replicas of European varieties, but where first-rate original art was being created high quality frames still flourished. During this period a neoclassical style was the dominant inspiration for decorative motifs drawn from ancient Greek and Roman architecture. These usually included acanthus leaves, a beaded interior edge, and a continuous laurel-leaf and berry outer edge with wrapped corners. The fluted cove, when water gilded, reflects light back into the painting. This fluted cove design is commonly called the Hudson River School frame because it is often paired with landscapes painted by artists of that school. Bierstadt is associated with the Hudson River School because he solely painted landscapes. The parallel lines of fluted coves go well with landscape paintings because they allow the painting to extend outward, which particularly suits depictions of deep, open landscapes with distant horizons.
Conservation Techniques
At first examination, the Bierstadt frame looked to be in very poor condition. The frame was covered in a thick and poorly applied coat of brass-colored gold paint. There were several areas of loss in the ornaments, with some of them having been filled rather badly, as well as some ornaments that had been reattached in a rather clumsy manner that required significant repair.Using a microscope to look at the ornamentation
Thorough testing was required to determine how to remove the paint from the frame without doing further damage. There were no chips or samples available for examination so solubility testing was performed in the proper right corner of the frame. Several solvents were tested, and a gel system with a biochemical-based soy system proved effective, controllable, and safe. For particularly stubborn patches of paint an applied solution of naphtha, alcohol, and acetone was used sparingly both for the safety of the conservators and the integrity of the original gold layer. Once the paint film softened it was revealed that the frame was covered with three layers of brass-colored paint over the original gold leaf.
While removing the paint, the conservation team could see that areas of the frame (especially the sight edge, top edge, and corner ornaments) contained water-gilt gold and that removal of the paint layer showed no effect on the gold layer. The fluted cove and outside hollow proved to be in more problematic condition with literally no gold leaf left in either area, although the gesso layer was thankfully in quite good condition. Due to the copper content in the brass radiator paint, some of the layers of paint clinging to the frame has turned green. These areas most likely once contained a layer of dust or accretions. Since the frame was water-gilt only aqueous solutions would damage the gold layer. On a water-gilt frame, a layer of gelatin acts as a magnet for dust. We believe that at some point someone tried to clean the frame with an aqueous agent which removed the gold layer along with the dirt, and consequently tried to hide or repair the damage by slathering it with what is believed to be a type of brass radiator paint.
stripped area on top, brass radiator paint on bottom
Alongside such traditional gilding methods, an acrylic system was used for the hollow, utilizing mica powder and aquazol, watercolors, and wax solutions. Mica powders were also used on the fluted cove sections. Casts were made to fill in missing elements on the ornaments with Aradite, an epoxy used for casting material. Also, in a couple of areas that had been badly repaired in the past by previous would-be conservators, gesso was thinly applied over the repair, and the appropriate elements recarved before the new repairs were covered with grey bole and prepared for water gilding. Once the frame was completed it was toned with watercolor and aquazol. The elements were then burnished with horsehair, hematite, and agate.