Basket of Fruit, a still life by American artist John Francis (1808–1886), was last conserved here at CAM in 1975. At that time, the painting was cleaned and lined (that is, attached to another piece of canvas). Its dark discolored coating was not easily dissolved, and as a result, the conservator only thinned the coating. After treatment, while the painting was indeed much brighter, countless dark specks of coating remained, casting a dotted or speckling effect over the still life and visually flattening the forms.

Fifty years later, advances in the field of paintings conservation provide better cleaning methods.  Using specific lab recipes, we can now gel solvents, and the consistency of these solvent gels allows complete contact with an irregular surface of thickly painted brushstrokes. While the dark residues are still not easily dissolved, in the recent cleaning, a solvent gel reduced or even removed most of the specks.

The nuts, apples and other items appear sharper and more in focus, as you can see here, with “before cleaning” on the left, and “after cleaning” on the right.  Without the flattening effect of the speckling, the sense of depth increased.

Freshly conserved Basket of Fruit is already back on view in Gallery 217.