Cleaning a Dutch Oil Painting
This photograph features a hundred year old Dutch oil painting which has been half cleaned to highlight the difference cleaning can make.
The painting has not been subjected to a tobacco polluted atmosphere thus making cleaning easier, usually. Tobacco smoke can penetrate varnish and affect the paint beneath and therefore the cleaning process is often more complex and time consuming for smoke affected pictures.
Once the original varnish has been removed, as in this case, the transformation can be startling.
