Painting number one is not in great shape. Restorer Maikki Kivinen can’t begin to understand what happened to the painting that hung for years in the front room of the historic Administration building at Oude Boteringestraat 44. 

‘Here!’ she says. ‘You see that? They actually cut pieces out and put really weirdly shaped patches on the back.’

On her computer, she pulls up a picture showing the painting exposed to UV light. It clearly shows how much the painting was mistreated. The top of the painting is a patchwork of weird geometric shapes where someone glued on random pieces of canvas. ‘They then attached it with cheesecloth’, says Kivinen. ‘But that’s obviously never going to stay put.’ 

The ‘bunglers’ who did this then painted on the attached pieces and tried using a knife or pen to imitate the craquelure on the 200-year-old work. ‘It’s bizarre’, says Kivinen. She’s been working as a painting restorer for decades, for both the Fries and the Drents museums, but she’s never seen something like this.

Future proof

Kivinen has been involved in the Administration building’s renovation, which has lasted three years so far, from the beginning. Originally, the renovation was only supposed to take three years. Delays caused by the pandemic, increased building costs, and the energy crisis necessitating extra insulation meant she had more time to restore the six iconic paintings from the front room and make them future proof.

Someone put one of those metal bars that hold windows open through the painting

The extra time was sorely needed. Especially painting number one, a romantic, fictitious landscape showing a ruin, some rustic cows, and cloudy skies, was in a terrible state. She talked to the man who was involved in maintaining the university’s interior in the eighties. ‘He told me someone put one of those metal bars that hold windows open through the painting.’

However, he didn’t know why pieces had been cut out of the painting. In fact, there’s eerily little known about the canvases from the monumental building. No one knows how old they are, or where they came from. That’s odd, considering the Administration building has a rich history.

Town house

The town house was built for Jacobus Ter Steege, a rich merchant, on the foundations of a much older house. King’s Commissioner Gustaaf Willem van Imhoff moved in in 1813 and it became the official residence.
The royal family even had their own guest room. The UG didn’t buy the property until 1953. For a while, it housed the Faculty of Economy. After that, the board of directors moved in.

You might think that, since the building is so important, there would be extensive documentation, inventory lists, or mentions of it in letters. Unfortunately, there are very few sources on the building. Sure, there are complaints about the poorly working chimneys, insufficient number of bathrooms, and damp. There are blueprints and building permits, but hardly any information on what the building used to look like.

That means Kivinen doesn’t have much to work with apart from general knowledge and whatever she could glean from the paintings themselves.

Assembly line

The six paintings have been hanging in the front room for approximately 150 years, but they weren’t custom-made for the room. She is absolutely sure of this. ‘Paintings one and two are the best ones’, she says. ‘They belong together.’ They were once a single painting that was cut in two and mounted separately. ‘But they were the wrong way around in the front room.’

There were these companies that produced paintings like these

Paintings three and four were made using a similar technique and were made by either the same painter or someone from the same studio. ‘Back then, there were little companies that produced paintings like these. One painter painted the cows, the second one did the sky, and the third one did the foliage. Kind of like an assembly line.’ 

Paintings five and six have no relation to each other or the four others.  They were done by different painters from different backgrounds. ‘Having these paintings in your house was all the rage’, says Kivinen. ‘A Dutch farm with the Alps in the background.’  However, it’s also possible they were originally painted for an entirely different interior and later moved to the Oude Boteringestraat. In fact, this is the most likely scenario.

The back room has one of these paintings, Kivinen says. But they were in much better shape, and were protected by boards during the renovation.

Amateur restorations

She’s spent the past few months trying to restore painting number one. Not only had entire pieces been cut out, but painting one and the other pieces had been taken off the original stretcher and put on a new frame. ‘But that was done by an amateur who actually damaged them. The wooden slats of the stretcher were pressing against the canvas, leaving an impression.’

I always try to be uninvasive, but this is the only way

Because of all these poor restorations done in the eighties and nineties, there’s only one way she can save the painting: a process called doubling. She admits it’s drastic, but she has no choice. ‘I always try to be as uninvasive as possible when restoring a piece. But this is the only way.’

On the back of the painting, she uses a consolidant, a heat-activated synthetic material. She then works out any imperfections with a kind of miniature iron, spending hours bent over the nearly two-metre tall canvas while listening to a podcast, to ensure the transitions are as invisible as possible. 

She also applies a new layer of stretched-out linen to the back. A special vacuum table reheats the synthetic material, fusing the linen to the original canvas.

Lastly, Kivinen has to fill in the missing bits. The biggest challenge, she says, is to not do too good a job. ‘People have to be able to see the restoration’, she says. ‘Otherwise, you’re competing with the original work. That’s not our job.’

When she’s done with all this, it’s time for the finishing touch. She varnishes the painting, protecting it and restoring the original colours’ lustre. ‘That way, we can ensure that it’ll look good for a nice, long time.’