Image reintegration is carried out by conservators in order to ensure that a painting can be seen without the attention of the viewer being drawn too much to any losses present. Retouching can be carried out in different styles and with different media, but conservators always ensure that their retouching can be removed from the work if needed without damaging any original paint. Depending on what is seen as appropriate for the artwork, conservators can use either ‘mimetic’ approaches- aiming to perfectly match the original paint layer in colour and texture- or ‘non-mimetic’ approaches – painting the area of loss in a way that will draw the eye less while still acknowledging the loss. Non-mimetic approaches can include painting in a block of a neutral colour or matching the colour by hatching finely painted lines that are distinct from the original work. Here our paintings conservator is using a mimetic technique, inpainting some small losses in the background of Mary Dorothy Webb’s (1850 – 1900) ‘Who Killed Cock Robin?’ (1883).
