Flour Paste: Investigating Alternative Ground Preparations for Oil Paintings

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CCI Newsletter, No. 24, November 1999

Flour Paste: Investigating Alternative Ground Preparations for Oil Paintings

by Leslie Carlyle, Senior Conservator, Materials Historian, Conservation Processes and Materials Research

I have had occasion to analyse a portion of the ground of a picture by Titian, ...this ground was composed of plaister (sic) of Paris, with starch and paste, but no glue or size, flour paste being used instead of gelatine. [Mérimée, J.F.L, p. 218 in The Art of Painting in Oil... (translated by W.B. Sarsfield Taylor), London: Whittaker & Co., 1839.]

Documentary sources such the one above speak to the use of flour paste as the binder in ground preparations. In fact, recommendations to use starch or flour paste in both the size layers and as a binder in the ground can be traced back to at least the 16th century.1 Yet, to date, research on the behaviour of canvas paintings has concentrated on grounds prepared with animal-glue size and oil paint, and current understanding of the response of grounds to environmental changes is therefore restricted to these materials. However, as part of a study of the biaxial tensile behaviour of paintings that is currently underway in London (England),2 CCI was asked to prepare three different 19th-century recipes for flour-paste grounds. This provided a first opportunity to study this type of ground.

The exercise of preparing these flour-paste recipes has been highly instructive, shedding light on the advantage of these preparations (speed in drying) and their immediate behaviour. One of the grounds has already developed significant cracking, which occurred even before the final layer of lead white in oil could be applied. This behaviour is consistent with an early-19th-century painting with a flour-paste preparatory layer that was recently treated at CCI.3 However, not all the preparations are this unstable. The other two recipes we produced have what appear to be sound surfaces, and one in particular could provide an enduring ground for an oil painting.

The effectiveness of all three recipes will be evaluated in the London study, which should help us determine whether or not certain recipes for these grounds did provide a viable alternative for the more common oil- and/ or glue-based preparations.

  1. Merrifield, Mrs. Original Treatises Dating from the XIIth to XVIIIth Centuries on the Arts of Painting..., Vol.1. London: John Murray, 1849, pp. cclxxxiv-cclxxxv.

  2. The biaxial testing project is headed by Dr. Christina Young in conjunction with The Tate Gallery, The National Gallery, London, The Courtauld Institute of Art, and Imperial College, London. For more information, see: Young, C.R.T., and R.D. Hibberd. "Biaxial Tensile Testing of Paintings on Canvas." Studies in Conservation 44 (1999), pp. 129-41.

  3. Portrait of Jean Dessaulles, attributed to Louis Dulongpré (1754--1843). An X-radiograph (by Jeremy Powell) of the painting revealed that cracking had occurred before the paint layer was applied. For more information, see: Helwig, K., and D. Daly Hartin."A Starch-based Ground Layer on a Painting Attributed to Louis Dulongpré." Journal of the Canadian Association for Preservation 24 (1999), pp. 23-28.