The Paint Detective

Patrick Baty
Sampling

Small
samples are
taken from
each of the
elements
The best of the samples are selected and
placed in moulds with a label to identify
them
 The paint flakes are placed in half-filled
moulds. Quick-setting resin is poured over
them, and they are left to harden.
Cross Sections
 Cross Sections

When the resin has set the block is cut through and polished
 Microscopy

Examination is carried out using different microscopes

 Paint Analysis

A series of green schemes found on a garden door on

the Culzean Castle estate
 Pigment Analysis
A few grains of pigment are spread on a
glass slide and examined under a
polarising microscope
Typical shapes of pigment particles
Scanning Electron Microscope
 Simple Tricky!

Gwydyr House Benjamin Franklin House

Railings
 Spencer House

Projects range from the sublime ….

Spencer House - Painted Room
James Stuart’s Design - 1759
 Spencer House - Painted Room
Existing scheme

First scheme
Plaster Cross Section

Note how the recent layers are much darker than the early ones
Spencer House - Painted Room
Gilding

Existing
Original
 RAF Bicester

Wartime Bomber Station

Documentary Evidence

British Standard 381C: 1931

 Albany

The aim of the project often varies

Hampton Court – Privy Garden

1702

1990
 Tijou Screen

1975
Cross Section
Hampton Court 1995
 Tijou Screen

To Gild or Not?

Initial compromise

Six months later

Hammersmith Bridge
Useful Training for a Paint Analyst
 Sampling

From Top….. …to Bottom

Location of Gilding
 Temple Newsam

Picture Gallery before project Red or Green Flock?

 Temple Newsam - Green Flock

Fragment embedded in primer

Finished appearance
 Uppark - Saloon

2
1

Just three schemes

Repton Bookcase 1814

 Uppark - Little Parlour

Fowler-applied

Chimneypiece Cross-Section
Goodwood

Evidence of something underneath

Goodwood - Scagliola Revealed

Painters’ names
1947 1903
1970

Egyptian Dining Room

 Original Paintwork

Unpainted
plaster

Tapestry Drawing Room ceiling

 Early Texts

John Smith Whittock, Tingry and Hay

 Handel House Museum

Exterior First View

 Attic Panelling

Red oxide in size primer

Original Door

Early browns
Handel House - Completed
Newhailes

Dining Room
Fine Green
The colourman who
supplied the paint
 Newhailes - Dining Room
French Ultramarine

1740s & 1870s Schemes 1870s scheme on sashes

Newhailes – Alcove Bedroom

Five schemes
Holmwood House

Alexander “Greek” Thompson

 Exposed Stencilling

Entrance Hall – fifth scheme Landing – third scheme

Elaborate Decoration
Gilding

Green

Red

Gilded Stencil Detail

Plaster
 Scope for Confusion

Green on Red Stencil Red on Green Stencil

A Wiltshire House - Saloon

Chimneypiece Exposed purple on ceiling

 By Appointment to
Her Majesty The Queen
Architectural Paint Specialists
Papers and Paints Ltd

For more information on what I do:

www.colourman.com
Blog = http://papers-paints.blogspot.com