Ways/Techniques to Make Illegible Name Legible From Quill Pen and Ink 19th Century.

It was worth a try. This is all I could get out of the image. It's hard to instruct photography remotely.

i need help requested an image of the entire object. This may add in your request.

 

Hey there Roaring20s,

Did you mean to attach something?! I don't see it there on your post. Excited to see what you came up with.

Also I know there was a request for a pic of the entire thing, but its with a Conservation team right now. All I had was that one pic of the name for me to work on. I can post a pic of the entire painting soon, but it will be a while. :/

Thank you all!

 

Its of Canty Bay and Bass Rock, with a few scottish women on the bottom left and a few sailboats.

 

Also, in front of the image I shared, there is a very clear J.W. and then that writing thats hard to make out.

 

Note to self, coffee first.

Do the conservators have input?

 

They said it appears at first glance to be a J.W.C, but there are drag marks/ink that make it harder to make out. Back then the ink/pen drag marks are important to the letter word completion. I sent them a few images of my filtered ones. I have not heard back yet.

 

If it is at a conservator's lab, ask them if they could do a photo with an infrared filter. Here is an example of what IR can sometimes achieve:

 

I think its more complicated they said since its on wood.

 

Oh my goodness! That seems close!

 

Tsimshian panel painted on wood - photo on right with IR.

 

I looked at J.W. Carmichael paintings and the style is off a bit. I'm not sure its him... but the digital images could be giving me that impression versus an original.

 

I wanted to loop back and say, IT WAS A J.W. Carmichael!!!!! The reason the style seemed a bit off is because it had 3 layers of restoration and it took away from the original painting. ))) I got the restoration professionally removed. It's just beautiful..... )))

 

Thank you for the update!