The sustainable way to upgrade the picture lighting at Castle Howard

As part of the 21st Century Renaissance Project at Castle Howard, Heritage Lighting Matters were asked to sustainably upgrade the picture lighting in the Long Gallery. The company worked with various designers and the Internal Curatorial Team at Castle Howard. This project covered many specialist skill sets to cover all aspects of the room, from gilding to curtains and electrical wiring to architectural joinery. All areas of renovation and restoration were expertly carried out on time to re-open at the end of April.

Their role in the project was to sustainably upgrade the existing picture lights from the old technology, which offered limited light coverage and poor distribution across the canvas. In many instances, the paintings were overlit at the top, with little or no light levels further down. Due to the size of the picture light heads, the light was unable to reach the edges of the canvases, and so the viewing experience was not what it could or should be.

They were asked to improve the light coverage, increase the detail and definition across the canvas and work with the existing picture light models, wherever possible, in their collection. This was not at all easy, and many would have walked away at this point, but HLM likes a challenge! The paintings ranged in size from an oval 12” x 18” painting through to large landscapes 64” x 84” and full-length portraits of 136” x 86”.

The collection houses many famous artists and paintings, and a careful and considerate approach was required for each piece. To gain the correct lighting levels, the following key items had to be selected:

• Colour Temperature - A warm white light, 2,700K
• Colour Rendering - A high CRI was required to bring out the rich colours, definition & brush strokes in the paintings
• Head Shape & Size - To work with the existing styles of picture light, which were Linolite and Allom & Heffer.
• LED Lensing & Spacing - Various lensing & separations were selected dependent on the head size (8” through to 40”) for each of the paintings to be lit.
• Arm Position - Correctly sized arms were calculated, each with a swivel knuckle, to gain the desired head position and angle. It is important to shield the LED source so that no glare is observed when viewing the painting.
• Lighting Levels - Each picture light was supplied with a dedicated dimmer to ensure correct levels are achieved.

Results

The lighting is picture perfect, and we were able to gain the required coverage on all paintings.

If you are ever in the North Yorkshire area, please do pay a visit to this iconic House & Gardens, it's thoroughly recommended. If you would like to hear more about this project, please get in touch with Heritage Lighting Matters through their website below.

Find out more at www.heritagelightingmatters.com

Trusted to light the finest art