Sir John Soane's Museum, London

Photo of inside the soane museum London, showing many antique statues and carvings on the walls and ceilings.

Close up of a painting of Sir John Soane wearing a black jacket and white shirt, sat on a brown chair with a red background.

The Soane's Museum in Holborn is based within the home of renowned 19th-century architect Sir John Soane. In addition to its unique architectural style and decorative interiors, the building houses Soane's extensive collection of paintings, prints, sculpture, architectural ornament and other antiquities. The interior has been preserved as close as possible to how it was left at the time of Soane's death, and conservation work is steadily being undertaken to remove later additions and alterations. Conservation treatment was carried out on behalf of Hare & Humphreys to the faux prophyry scheme of the main entrance hall. In addition to paint loss caused by water ingress and general wear and tear, past restorations had deteriorated and disfigured areas of retouching, overpaint and a thick wax layer.

Photo showing a red wall with a cream decorative carved plaque featuring women in Greek style clothing. The red wall is dirty and damaged with areas of paint flaking away.

Previous retouching coupled with continued water ingress had resulted in flaking and loss of original surface and disfiguring overpainting

An old red painted wall inside the Soane Museum.

Wall in raking light, highlighting the brush marks and blooming of wax applied to the decorative surface

Interior plaster in the form of blocks which has been painted in red. The left hand side blocks have been cleaned, the right hand side blocks are still dirty.

During removal of dirty wax coating, revealing the vibrant original painted surface beneath

One panel of the original Soanian porphyry decoration had at some stage been damaged and poorly overpainted in a previous restoration.

This restoration had degraded and become highly disfiguring, disrupting the unity of the scheme.

The faux porphyry effect was reinstated using traditional methods to more closely match the surrounding original surface.

Close up image of a red porphyry paint effect.

Red painted interior of the Soane Museum before restoration

Red painted interior of the Soane Museum.

Red painted interior of the Soane Museum. A cream plaque hangs on the wall showing women in greek syle clothing.

Progress of wax removal to upper section of wall

Red painted interior of the Soane Museum. White painted ceiling and antique busts and plaques hung on the walls.

Entrance hall after conservation works