Lucy Tripney

Culture & Heritage, 2020

While I’ve really enjoyed studying conservation at UC, my favourite experience has been an internship at Port Arthur, working with the collections management team. In the future, I would love to be able to work in a similar capacity.

This piece of work is a cheval frame purchased from an antiques shop in very rough shape. Made from timber with a plaster coating, it had a brass finish. My treatment involved a gentle dry brush cleaning and aqueous cleaning with water, a consolidation of the flaking paint surface with adhesive, infilled and moulded the decorative corners with an epoxy resin, and inpainted using acrylic paint, matte varnish, and copper and gold pigments to replicate the brass finish. As it was likely used to house a mirror, I’ve also had a mirror cut for it, but due to the difficulties of photographing mirrors, it is not visible in the below images.

I'm looking for a job.