In the middle of the 19th century, when methods of icons’ cleaning have been developed, a completely unknown world of Russian ancient painting has been revealed to the world. The unknown images hidden under layers of dirt and painting have been shown to the world. The world has learned monumentalism of icons from the pre-Mongolian time, beauty and lightness of icons from the 15th century, strictness of images from the16th century.

On a wave of the increased interest in collecting of icons, the market and restoration activities started to be formed. In restoration practice a new way of icons’ cleaning has appeared - where a gold background was cleared until the ground has appeared, exposing a structure of the ancient crackle. This aesthetics has found benevolent reception among collectors. It is also necessary to notice, that this way of restoration was in line with the art concept of the icons originally painted on gold backgrounds. Icons cleaned using the under ivory method have filled the museums, and being reproduced in numerous editions they have strongly come into mind of collectors as a certain obligatory attribute of an ancient work of art.

What can we see in many European galleries trading in Russian art today? They are filled with icons cleaned using under ivory method. Moreover, this is made by purpose - the icons of the 19th century originally painted using completely different colorific rules undergo the cleaning. "Restorators" working on the modern market are following the market trends. They create a visibility of an antiquity and by doing that, actually mislead a buyer. After such "restoration", the icon loses its collection value. Most likely, an interesting work of art is lost, as a high-grade artifact. Collectors shall approach the principles of formation of their collections with more care, paying the greater attention to safety of artifacts and to the methods of their restoration.