Framing and Mounting of Pictures

A few words only are requisite as to the mounting and framing of water-colour paintings. On no account must the back of the paper on which a drawing is executed come into contact with any kind of wood, or even with an inferior sort of paper or mounting-cardboard. Injurious substances in the latter may travel forwards into the painting-ground, and affect the pigments, while wood may cause stains. Iron brads produce rust-spots. Flour-paste is not a sound material for mounting drawings; far better is an antiseptic size, which may also be used for fixing to the back of the frame the sheet of paper which is there placed to exclude dust. If we could secure a water-colour drawing from dust, and yet allow of the escape of any water set free in the form of vapour when the drawing gets, from whatever cause, somewhat warmer than usual, we should have effected an improvement upon the ordinary plan of framing. In this, the moisture liberated from the paper and mount cannot escape, but condenses upon the glass when it cools, only to be reabsorbed by that surface of the paper which carries the pigments, where it favours chemical and physical changes, until the hygroscopic equilibrium of the whole system - frame, mount, lining, paper, etc. - is once more re-established. I have used with advantage grey linen in lieu of brown paper at the back of frames, and, by means of a few strips of thick drawing-paper, have established an air-communication between the space in front of the drawing and that at the back.

Thus the ventilation of the system is arranged for, yet dust is excluded. To hermetically seal a framed drawing, to the entire exclusion of all moisture and all air, is not possible. That under such conditions a greatly increased number of pigments would prove unalterable has been long known. We should add to these observations upon the conservation of works in water-colour that they should certainly be kept in a rather drier atmosphere than that recommended for oil paintings.