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Charis
22"hx28"w
Encaustic on Panel
$3,200

Encaustic is one of the oldest painting mediums known to humanity. Based on beeswax and varnish, it is very resistant to temperature and humidity changes. Although encaustic is primarily wax, the addition of damar varnish crystals substantially increases the melting temperature of the medium to over 200°, therefore unless one is careless enough to put their painting in an oven, there is no risk of it “melting”.

The ancient encaustic funerary portraits from Fayoum in Egypt are oftentimes in a better state of preservation that oil paintings done two centuries ago. Their colors are as fresh as when they were painted two thousand years ago, and oftentimes the issue with restoration is not the wax but the support, usually wood panels, that need to be reinforced. The wood doesn’t resist as well to two thousand years of temperature and humidity changes, and microbes. Luckily in the 21st century we have state-of-the-art restoration techniques and the encaustic portraits of Fayoum look beautiful in their respective places of display, such as at the Louvre in Paris or the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.


Maintenance…

Encaustic paintings can take a good deal of light and look better under stronger illumination. Over time the surface may lose a little sheen and one can simply buff the surface gently with a soft cheesecloth to bring back the deep luster of the wax.