J. Laffan Art Restoration and Conservation

31/08/2025

31/08/2025

Our Lady of Graces

We have just completed the conservation of a painting depicting our lady of graces for the Dominican church pope's key Cork city.

This was possibly painted in 1902, it is in the style of an Italian religious painting of the 14th.C. This devotion to our lady of graces began in 1345 near the foot of Monte Nero, Italy.

Copious amounts of gold leaf were used, which required carful conservation on our part.

It is based on a 14th.C ivory plaque 5x11cm, which was carved in Paris. It made its way to Youghal Priory Co Cork. In 1578 Walter Raleigh destroyed the Priory, but the plaque survived and was transferred to St.Marys Dominican Church where it can still be seen today.

In 1953 a Portland stone carving by Shamus Murphy was erected in Youghal at the south Abbey depicting this very image of our lady of graces.

Isn't history fun.

10/12/2023

31/12/2020

Meet one of our favourites "The Monk in the woods" by James Arthur O'Connor 1792-1841. O'Connor was famous for painting some moonlight landscapes, this painting looked like night it was so dark, but there was no moon! He used some bitumen, tar, in the paint , this was fashionable at the time before artists realised that it turned into a lumpy streaky mess after a time.
So in the late 19thC someone went to fix this but they made things worse when they "cleaned "away lots f darks mostly burnt umbers and greens. To compensate they painted the missing bits and big areas that were ok. Then to hide the mistakes they put a dark paint in the varnish.
Our work was to conserve the original canvas and paint, then remove all the repainting. The slowest part was inpainting only the missing paint, but it was worth the effort in the end.

We worked on a painting in Fota House Co.Cork who are a pleasure to work with.

forest

03/10/2020

The Jigsaw Frame-This is the story of an early 19thC (1800 - 1840) Regency triptych overmantle mirror that suffered a catastrophic fall. There it was on its mantlepiece where most overmantle mirrors live, the next thing it was on the floor in hundreds of pieces. It took a long time to figure out what went where when it got to our studio. It was complicated by having been repaired badly 60 to 70 years ago. These repairs did not match the original and were painted with "gold" paint that had turned dark brown. These old repairs were rejected and new copies of the original were made, All new pieces were gilded to match the original. The client was ecstatic with the finished product.

13/09/2020

This is a painting held in the called "The Sabrina" dated 1845 that I restored in 2011. As you can see from the first picture there was signifcant damage to the canvas and painting. Along with repairing numerous holes in the canvas I cleaned the dirt and grimme built up along the years and also inpainted damaged areas of missing paint. Swipe accross to see the restoration progression.

13/09/2020

Our family business logo was crafted using the Chinese horoscope symbols, the snake and the Dragon representing my wife and myself.

23/10/2015

The painting of the brigantine Melina can now be seen in the Bishops Palace museum Waterford. Owned and sailed by captain Laurence Veale 1831-1894 this painting is now on extended loan courtesy of Gabrielle Veale.

23/10/2015

The flag of the Melina has a green border and a shamrock.

25/05/2014

A giltwood mirror frame in repair.