Page:The museum, (Jackson, Marget Talbot, 1917).djvu/138

112. Others subject the pictures to the fumes of pure alcohol, the Pettenkofer system, which brings out the colors in a most astonishing way. But the question of the method to be used is not nearly as important as the question of the ability and character of the restorer.

We have, unfortunately, learned from England a love of varnish which would have made most of the old masters turn in their graves. The dealers say: "We can not sell a picture unless it has a good heavy varnish on it. People like the old look that comes by using a heavy yellow-toned varnish." But this is wrong and we must develop the taste of the public in our museums by showing them pictures with only a thin coat of varnish, just sufficient to keep the paint intact as was originally intended. The danger in removing varnish is, of course, that the glazes may also be removed.

At a certain period in the XVIII and XIX centuries, a great deal of pernicious repainting was done under the name of restoration, and pictures which underwent a thorough overhauling at that time are almost unrecognizable in some cases. The stories that one hears of the remarkable discoveries that have been made of Raphaels and other famous masters hidden away beneath the paint put on by the restorer are as thrilling