Provenance and Research
If you purchase vintage art, you are buying a moment in time and a piece of history. Imagine the disappointment if you should subsequently discover that the story that you believed and cherished transpired to be a lie.
We are very fortunate that in our local area we have Lisu Adye, a paper conservator and Keith Allen, our framer.
Lisu has worked with many prestigious galleries and museums; she has an honours degree in Fine Art and a postgraduate in paper and book restoration and is our ‘go-to’ for old and damaged works. Using her expert skill and judgement Lisu can always advise us on the outcome we can expect before we undertake any expensive treatment! She is our ‘Art G.P.’
Keith is a ‘Guild commended framer’ and has a workshop equipped with the very latest in framing technology – we have thrown him many curved balls and he has never once been stumped! Keith is fond of the John Ruskin quote “Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort” (and it shows in his work!).
In the gallery, these two are known as ‘The dream team’ and access to them is probably one of our most valuable assets.
Sometimes the state of the artwork is often integral to its appeal, we recently worked on a 120 year old Montaut which smelt of woodsmoke from years of hanging on a chimney breast (with an ill-fitting frame!), whilst we cannot do much about ‘smells’ we are always very careful when restoring a work, not to remove any ‘soul’. It is often the little things like this, that help with provenance.
We are happy to guarantee provenance and to provide our research findings with an artwork. We also guarantee if we don’t know the answer we won’t make one up just to get a sale or satisfy the customers requirement, The Mabileau
