🎨𝐖𝐞𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ✨Meet our SIP-C 2026 interns at the Yale Center for British Art @yalebritishart Autumn and Gabby are deep in the process of reconstructing 17th and 18th century Elizabethan portrait paintings — and we mean the FULL process.

From sealing wooden panels with animal glue, gessoing, sanding, and laying down oil ground layers, to underdrawings and paint cross section analysis. By the end of the summer they will have completed a full reconstruction of a selected portion of an Elizabethan painting. This is what conservation looks like up close. 🖌️ Slide 1: Autumn and Gabby carefully removing varnish from Paul Van Somer’s ‘A Young Girl’. 🎨 Slide 5: Autumn grinding pigment to lay down the oil ground layer — without it, the oil paint seeps straight into the wood grain. The process is intentional down to every detail. ✨ Last slide: Gabby sanding down 6 layers of gesso applied to a wood panel the day before — the same process 17th century painters used. 𝙿𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚎𝚌𝚑𝚗𝚒𝚚𝚞𝚎. #SIPC2026 #ConservationInAction #YaleCenterForBritishArt #ArtConservation