Francis Creswicke's portrait - The Conservator's Story Francis Creswicke was made Mayor of Bristol in 1645. When the city fell to the Parliamentarians in September that year, Creswicke and other members of the Corporation were removed from office because of their Royalist sympathies. According to its inscription, this portrait of Creswicke (by an unknown Dutch artist) was painted in 1630. It was acquired by Bristol Museums, Galleries & Archives in 1958 but what happened to it in between is unknown. When it was chosen for display at M Shed it was in poor condition and needed substantial conservation treatment. Dirt, discoloured varnish and overpaint from earlier restoration made it look very dark and obscured many details, so these were removed by using solvents, or by painstaking scraping under a microscope. Old paintings on wooden panels often have blistered or peeling paint. Today conservators carefully lay the original pieces of loose paint back down but in the past it was acceptable to scrape it off and repaint over large areas to hide the losses. The background of this was painted over so much that the original inscription was obscured and then re-written over the top. Conservation has enabled the original writing to be seen and all the gaps where paint was lost have been filled in and retouched to blend in with the surrounding paint. The painting now looks as close as can be to how it would have looked when painted for Francis Creswicke in 1630.