Cautionary Tale for Picture Hangers

[Flyfisher]

An oil painting recently fell off our wall, damaging the frame and tearing a 4 inch split down the middle of the canvas. Turns out that the wire had broken, which I found rather surprising as it looked quite substantial.

The painting is not particularly valuable but is very sentimental as it's my wife's great great grandfather, so naturally we wanted to get it repaired. After some research we found a well-recommended restorer but were somewhat stunned to find it's a 4 figure sum to get fixed. Fortunately our insurance company has been very helpful, so at least we don't have to worry about the cost!

The point of all this is that the restorer told us that this sort of damage is very common because the hanging wire becomes brittle over time and will eventually just break without warning.

So, if you have any old paintings/pictures, it might be worth checking the condition of any wire used for hanging. Or, at least, check your insurance cover!

 

[NT]

... and use 2 hanging wires side by side, so that when one breaks it doesnt fall, but does go on the wonk so the problem is visible.

NT

 

[Kittycat]

..for useful advice. I had a huge framed mirror fall off the wall once due to wire snapping. The frame broke but the mirror stayed in one piece!

 

[Jocelyn]

Oooh, ouch.
Sympathy!

We usually hang ours on chains, one at each end. Some people put a second fixing underneath to catch the frame or part of the twisted wire if it breaks.

Hope its fixed soon.
Good Luck

Jocelyn

 

[Lime]

Some people put a second fixing underneath to catch the frame or part of the twisted wire if it breaks.

With heavy wall-hanging pictures and mirrors I always fit a second separate set of supports as sleepers, which are much stronger (usually bolts in the wall and heavy chain strapped to the entire length of the frame) hidden behind the mirror/picture to stop it ever falling.
I'm much more concerned for the people likely to be underneath!

 

[Flyfisher]

Hope its fixed soon.
Good Luck

Thanks; I think it's under control . . . it all depends on whether the restorer is really as good as everyone says she is. Time will tell.

It isn't a particularly big or heavy painting, which is why we were surprised it fell. Chain sounds like a good idea, even though I suspect a new wire would last another 100 years or so. But once bitten, twice shy!

 

[Penners]

My elderly parents have a portrait of me as a youngster in their dining room.

But I'm well hung.

 

[Jocelyn]

Glad to hear it David!

 

[Nigel Watts]

I too am going to use a chain system, hanging from brass rods:

http://www.picturehangingsystems.co.uk/brass_list.html

This should also save the wallpaper from damage. Not a cheap option though, but as I am planning to use hand printed wallpaper I reckon it is worth it. The stuff has just arived but I have not yet erected it.

I bought an oil portrait last year which I found via e-bay (of my 3xgreat grandfather's sister in law, early 19th C) It was in pretty bad shape (polyurethaned, some paint missing, very murky etc.) I think the bill for a full restoration was around 1,600 quid, so what you paid may not have been out of line. It came in its original Regency frame, which was very distressed. This has actully cost more to put right than the picture.

PS I am writing this on a macintosh computer. How do you copy and paste on a mac? The PC shortcuts dont seem to work (Ctrl C then Ctrl V)

 

[Moo]

First, select what you want to copy (the computer likes to know such things).
Then go up to Edit and scroll down to Copy.
When you want to paste it into another document, tell it where you want it to go, then go back to Edit and scroll down to Paste.


On the other hand, when you go into any of the menus across the top of the screen (eg File, Edit, View, etc.) you'll see the keyboard shortcuts on the righthand side.

On mine, it's the Apple key (the one with the apple logo and a squiggle) plus C for copy, and the Apple key plus V for paste.

I'd guess that you can carry on with your usual keyboard shortcuts, but using the Apple key instead of the Ctrl one.

 

[piper]

I bought an oil portrait last year which I found via e-bay (of my 3xgreat grandfather's sister in law, early 19th C) It was in pretty bad shape (polyurethaned, some paint missing, very murky etc.) I think the bill for a full restoration was around 1,600 quid, so what you paid may not have been out of line. It came in its original Regency frame, which was very distressed. This has actully cost more to put right than the picture.

I bought a nice, slightly "primitive" 19th cent oil painting of some sheep, goat & chickens (not my ancestors) from an Oxfam shop two years ago. Very dirty, with a hole in the canvas, and with a horrible modern "gold" frame. Admitedly it's only c.1ft6" by 1ft, but cleaning and full restoration arraged through a rather posh antique dealer/art gallery in Shrewsbury only cost about 200 quid, so these prices of thousands are quite surprising. A nice frame then cost more than the picture, but is well worth it.

 

[Nigel Watts]

Interesting. My picture is about 3x2, so four times the area. I therefore paid about twice per square foot. The biggest problem with mine was the polyuretane varnish which had to be lifted off physicaly with a scapel without damaging the paint underneath. The paint was quite fragile and the whole picture needed to be relined.

 

[skier-hughes]

I suppose it's a bit like saying why didn't my house only cost £20,000 to restore, like yours did

 

[Penners]

I bought an oil portrait last year which I found via e-bay (of my 3xgreat grandfather's sister in law, early 19th C)

Nigel - that statement kind of got glossed over (no pun intended!). Did you find this portrait of your ancestor quite by chance on Ebay? If so, considering the gazillions of items on sale, that was a quite extraordinary coincidence.

Or was she famous and did you search specifically for the picture?

 

[Nigel Watts]

My mother's grandmother's family name was Royds. They came from Rochdale where they were prosperous wool merchants in the 18th and early 19th Centuries. The final heir to the Royds fortunes had drained his inheritance dry by the 1970s and sold off all the family papers and pictures. Some of the portraits were acquired by another member of the Royds family, but not all.

For a number of years I have been finding bits and pieces on the market - an odd title deed, some letters, some estate ledgers. Typing "Royds portrait" into Google finally yeilded a hit on ebay. The picture was listed as being of Mrs Royds because that was written on the frame. It had already sold but eventually I persuded the buyer to sell it to me. I knew it was the right picture because its image had been included in a book on the Royds pedigree published privately in 1910.

All rather satifying for a compulsive collector like myself!

 

[Jane Smith]

My dear friend Emma once went out with a Mr Royds, but she stopped seeing him immediately once I pointed out what her name could be if she ever married him.

Wish we had family portraits worth hanging. You don't get many oil paintings made of horse-thieves and cab drivers, though.

 

[Gervase]

Strewth, it's like having Penners' niece on board! :shock:

 

[wobs]

A friend of mine did an oil painting of Dali's Christ of St. John of the Cross. Its about 5' tall, and wonderful.

The only problem is that when we made the back frame, and put a canvass on it, it was pulled out of square, and so it's a bit wonky. When she painted, she then drew a correct rectangle on it.

What I would like to do is find someone who can reset the canvas on the wooden frame that we made so its square on, without cracking the paint.

Does anyone know anyone in the Yorkshire area that can do this? Also of course, I'd like to get it framed properly.

This is the original:

PS. I use chains and picture rails to hang pictures etc. Never had any bother since I started to do this.

 

[Flyfisher]

Just to complete this topic, we got the repaired painting back last week. A happy by-product of the work was the necessity to clean the painting and the frame before repairs, which also included re-gilding parts of the frame. Re-lining was also necessary because of the tear.

Anyway, the finished result is quite wonderful and it's looking as good as new (presumably, as I wasn't around in 1876). Final cost was £1110. Fortunately I only had to pay the £50 insurance excess.

I'm now looking for industrial strength fixtures and fittings before re-hanging! Pity we don't have picture rails.

 

[Penners]

My dear friend Emma once went out with a Mr Royds, but she stopped seeing him immediately once I pointed out what her name could be if she ever married him.

Yes - would have been a bit of a pain in the @rse, eh?

There's an apocryphal tale of a woman called Norma. She is said to have married a German PoW who stayed in the this country after the war. His name was Heinrich Stitz.