varnishings

The desks were carved with overlapping slogans and initials, most worn to ghosts by repeated sandings and re-varnishings but never erased completely.

Blaze

Injured by time or obscured by repeated varnishings, they often require some degree of cleaning to make them intelligible.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 37, November, 1860

Other men, of less power and penetration than he was — of a less open and piercing glance, searching not only the manifest but the hidden things of dishonesty amidst which he stood — might have been deceived by certain fair appearances in the aspects of Scottish Romanism; but no varnishings and no artifices could beguile him.

Luther and Other Leaders of the Reformation

"I have also the gratification to report that the contract for the wire has been faithfully fulfilled on the part of Aaron Benedict, the contractor; that the first covering with cotton and two varnishings of the whole one hundred and sixty miles is also completed; that experiments made upon forty-three miles have resulted in the most satisfactory manner, and that the whole work is proceeding with every prospect of a successful issue."

Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals In Two Volumes, Volume II

And note this, that even the spurious merit of the two French models can be sustained only by disguises, by suppressions, by elaborate varnishings; whereas the English prince is offered to our admiration with a

The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1

One could take a painting and write the story of the successive varnishings and cleanings it has undergone and discuss the changes of emphasis these have led to.

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