A Fresh Look at Eighteenth-Century Portraits

With support from the Stockman Family Foundation, the Williamstown Art Conservation Center was awarded nearly $238,000 to conserve thirty-one of the Albany Institute’s earliest Hudson Valley portraits dating from the first half of the eighteenth century.

The exhibition focuses on a small group of these portraits to highlight the process of conserving works of art that are close to three hundred years old. Detailed photographs accompany the portraits to show before and after results of conservation and offer visitors a chance to see conservators working at various stages throughout the process. The results of conservation reveal much about the materials artists used, their techniques and painting procedures, and what has been lost and revealed anew through conservation treatment.