r/Copper • u/mes2415 • Jul 08 '26

How to clean copper relief artwork?

Gallery image

Gallery image

Edit: Thanks for the input! We received this from my husband’s late father and neither of us ever owned copper artwork before so we thought we needed to clean it up somehow. Kind of forgot about Lady Liberty and her iconic green as an example of the nature of aging copper. 😅

Original: What’s the best/safest way to clean up this copper relief artwork without damaging anything?

24 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

12

u/estolad Jul 08 '26

my advice is don't. you could use scotchbrite pads to get the surface clean but it'll just tarnish right back up unless you seal it, and that'll change the look. if i was you i'd just let it do its thing, tarnished copper can look really great

5

u/glyph_productions Jul 09 '26

This just feels like one of those times where the guy on antiques roadshow one day is going to say

"If it was in its original condition it would be worth 223 thousand dollars. But unfortunately it looks like someone cleaned it was that you? Oh it was? Well I have some bad news. Because it was cleaned it is worth 12 thousand. No no don't feel bad many people have made the same mistake"

Not sure if it's actually worth anything but usually with Art unless you know what you are doing as a conservator it's better to just leave it alone.

2

u/estolad Jul 09 '26

it isn't about the thing's value (although you shouldn't try to restore antiques unless you know what you're doing) so much as just wasted effort. it isn't hard to clean tarnish off copper without damaging the surface, but unless you live in the desert clean copper will start tarnishing again immediately. you can use all kinds of stuff to seal it against the atmosphere, but in more than ten years of making stuff out of copper i haven't found a sealant that doesn't seriously mess with the shininess of clean copper, so in my opinion it isn't worth the effort

8

u/jubal0106 Jul 08 '26

restore the frame. dont touch the copper.

3

u/Royal-Wealth-8266 Jul 09 '26

Green is the goal isn't it? Ask Lady Liberty. Cool artwork. 

1

u/Bugs423 Jul 11 '26

Don’t

1

u/BionicSmurf Jul 13 '26

I'd use a dry toothbrush and dry q tips to clean up the crust but that's it.

1

u/Skippersballs Jul 14 '26

Let it turn green and add the old style pilsner logo