Page:The museum, (Jackson, Marget Talbot, 1917).djvu/139

Rh as any Arabian Nights' tale and probably no layman buys a rather poor picture cheaply without feeling sure that he has an old master disguised. The difficulty in making a restoration is that the restorer, unless he be very conscientious, is carried beyond his original intention to such an extent that it is almost impossible for him not to put in a good deal of his own work on the picture. A careful and conscientious restorer will, however, add nothing to the picture. If there are certain portions lacking, it is the duty of the restorer, as at present understood, to add merely flat color in the place where the paint is gone which will harmonize with the ancient painting but which will deceive no one. In our climate there is often a great deal of trouble from blisters where the paint rises up and starts to peel. The process of getting the paint back into position again is a very painstaking and laborious one. The usual way is to inject mastic under the blister with a hypodermic syringe and then lay the paint back in place very gently, covering it with a heavy weight until the mastic has set, in order firmly to fix the paint in place. Frequently, however, where the paint is cracked and is peeling in many places, the mastic is dabbed onto the face of the picture, trusting to luck that some of it will get into the cracks and hold the