Watercolour Painting

Watercolour — Figure with a Serpent

Indian School · 20th century · Watercolour & gouache on board

7 weeks

In the studio

Watercolour — Figure with a Serpent — before treatment

Watercolour — Figure with a Serpent — after treatment

AfterBefore

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The Story

Painted in a delicate, romantic idiom — a draped figure beside a forest pool, a serpent winding through the trees — this watercolour had suffered the most disfiguring kind of damage for a work of its kind: a dense scatter of small paint losses, bright white against the colour, that pulled the eye away from the image entirely.

Stabilising came first. The lifting and flaking paint was consolidated so that nothing more could be lost, and the surface was cleaned of the grime that had settled into it over the years.

Only then were the losses addressed — filled, then inpainted strictly within their own boundaries under reversible media, until the disfiguring white specks fell away and the composition could be read as the artist intended. A final, even re-saturation returned the depth to the greens and the glow to the blue.

The Damage: Widespread flaking and paint loss across the surface — a snow of small white losses scattered through the figure's drapery, the foliage, and the foreground — together with abrasion and ingrained grime that had dulled the once-luminous palette.
The Process: Surface cleaning, consolidation of the lifting and flaking paint, filling of the many small losses, and restrained inpainting confined to the losses alone, before an even re-saturation of the colours.
The Outcome: The scattered losses were reintegrated and the image made whole again — the blue drapery, golden limbs, and the coiling serpent reading clearly against a deep, recovered green.