More than one family member may wish to own the heirloom in question or it may be that the heirloom is too precious and fragile to be kept on display where it could be accidentally damaged. We are able to help by creating reproductions to such a precision that they are almost indistinguishable from the original. This enables more than one family member to show off the heirloom that they have such pride in, while also keeping the original stored securely away. One such occasion occurred recently when Andy Dean brought to us a particularly precious portrait. He has kindly written a few words explaining the situation and how we managed to help him, with photos showing the finished results:
Patsy Kumm Portrait
My partner’s father Alan has a beautiful portrait of his late wife Patsy who died in her early 40’s; in the 1970’s Patsy was a well-known journalist and author of cook books.
Alan is now in his mid-eighties and was facing the dilemma of bequeathing the portrait – each of his four children had expressed an interest in it.
He decided that if suitable fine art reproduction could be found that he would commission four framed copies. The portrait is rendered in fine pastels on a tinted texture board and I was tasked with finding the best solution. Many of the firms I tried were high street printers who just seemed to offer high resolution copying as an extension to their photocopy service.
After searching on the web I found Fine Art Solutions and after a phone call I realised that clearly they specialised in the kind of exact reproduction I was looking for.
I met with Gerry and was immediately re-assured that they would take great care of the precious original throughout the process, so we proceeded.
The original was scanned to a very high resolution digital image which was finely graded to match the exact colour and texture of the original. When I went to inspect the proof I was astonished – it was almost impossible to tell the copy from the original!
We were then faced with a choice of frames as each of my partner’s siblings had asked for a different style of frame from the original portrait.
Gerry put together a short list from the wide range of frames they offer; my partner Debi and I inspected them and I took some photos of the portrait with a selection of the frame corners to send to her brothers and sister.
Three of them chose the same frame style and so each portrait was framed appropriately to a very high level of workmanship. The original portrait was returned in pristine condition.
Alan and I were delighted with the result as it seems that Debi and her three siblings now all seem to own the original portrait.
