Technique

Chelsea Houses, Stanford University

There are traces of pencil work under the paint, around the windows and door. It is very thinly painted. The brushstrokes are curiously tentative except for the grey foreground, where long squarish strokes give a curiously uneven appearance.

Conservation History

Chelsea Houses, photograph, 1957

Chelsea Houses, photograph, 1980

Chelsea Houses, Stanford University , 2015

Chelsea Houses, photograph, 2016

Early photographs show extensive fine craquelure. Different photographs give very different impressions of the painting, and this may be due to lighting, but they suggest that it has darkened. The two figures painted thinly in black on the left have become very faint.

Frame

Chelsea Houses, frame, detail

Wooden frame, not original.