Managing museum collections has many responsibilities – historic fine art (sculptures, paintings, drawings, and prints) requires some special considerations. In 1961, the New Brunswick Museum acquired a painting by Sophia McLean Wood Law (c. 1834-1914) of Richibucto, NB. She was an early art instructor at Mount Allison Ladies’ College in Sackville, NB. Originally the artist presented it as a wedding gift to her girlhood friend, Mary Ann Powell (1830-1922) who married Kenneth B. Forbes on 14 March 1861 and it remained in the family until it entered the museum’s collection.
In 2025, the Owens Art Gallery requested the loan of this painting for their exhibition, Art = Work, which featured the art of Mount Allison University alumnae. In order to show the painting at its best, its condition required some professional attention. Over more than a century and a half, time had taken its toll – the painting was obscured by a fine layer of dirt embedded in a yellowed varnish and visually distracting cracks in the paint layer.
Thanks to Jane Tisdale, Fine Arts Conservator at the Owens Art Gallery, this painting received careful treatment and is now in a state much closer to what the artist originally intended. To achieve this transformation, after appropriate examination and testing, the surface dirt was removed, as well as the dust on the back of the canvas. The yellowed varnish was slowly removed and then careful inpainting of the damaged cracked paint was undertaken with dry pigment in resin.
Finally, a protective non-yellowing coating was applied to the surface and a backing board was attached on the reverse side when the painting was put back into the frame. To improve the appearance of the frame, some chipped and scratched areas were also inpainted with watercolour.
