When Stefan Dedecek, conservator of paintings at McKay Lodge Fine Arts Conservation Laboratory, Inc. in Oberlin, Ohio, examined our oil-on-canvas portrait of Rebecca Johnson Beall in 2017, he found it to be in very poor condition. The painting was obscured with dirt, aged varnish, and a large area of oil overpaint. Most troubling, the paint film was flaking and fragile throughout the picture, with some paint loss.
Thanks to a successful fundraiser held by WCHS’s Textile Committee, and gifts from generous individuals who contributed funds toward this project, the Beall House Committee was able to proceed with conservation of the portrait this year. In January, Rebecca made the journey up to Oberlin, and in June she returned to Wooster and a place of honor in the foyer of the Beall-Stibbs House. The before and after photos show clearly the impact of the McKay Lodge team’s expertise.
The large portraits of Rebecca Beall and her husband, Reasin Beall, were painted circa 1830 by an unknown artist and donated to the Historical Society in the 1950s by the late Thomas Ewing VanMeter of Worthington, Ohio, who had these two portraits of his ancestors hanging in his optometry office in Columbus for many years.
