When approaching the treatment of this table I had to look at the tables construction, which was wood covered in a layer of gesso and the top gilded. I also had to bare in mind that the client only had a limited budget and needed the item ready in a short amount of time, as they were giving it to a friend.
After much consideration I chose to retouch the damaged areas to blend them in to the surface so that they did not stand out. This way would take less time than regilding the surface, the appearance of the table would look better and all treatment would be reversible if the new owner ever wanted to have the full treatment carried out.
Firstly the whole table needed cleaning. Whenever I have a new item to clean I always carry out cleaning test on the surface. For these particular surfaces distilled water was effective at removing any dirt but did not remove any of the paint layer. From these tests I concluded using rabbit skin glue and water colour paints to retouch the surface. They are both soluble in hot water, so if the treatment needed to be reversed, water could be used without removing any original paint. I started by sealing the areas of exposed gesso using rabbit skin glue. I then retouched the gesso areas using water colour paints mixed with more rabbit skin glue. When I retouch I try to paint the area with a neutral colour that blends into the background, this way your eye is not drawn to the retouched area but on close inspection you see it is not the original surface.
Thankfully I managed to complete the treatment in the given amount of time and I think the final result has a subtle effect, which is exactly right. The owner was pleased so it was a good job all round.
When retouching anything historical it is always good ethics to apply the '6 foot 6 inch' rule. From 6 feet away the object looks complete and undamaged, from 6 inches away you can see which areas are original and which have been retouched.
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