1944 E. P. Richardson Amer. Romantic Painting 24 The overpaint was removed after his death and only the right hand of the present figure belongs to the final conception.

1958 Times 1 July 5/4 The overpaint has now been cleaned off, revealing not only the skull which Petty holds but also two other skulls engraved on the page of the book to which the left hand is pointing.

1973 F. Taubes Painter's Dict. 168 The evidence or absence of brushstrokes in the underpainting should be considered, for these may interfere with the overpaints.

1993 Art Newspaper (BNC) Jan. 9 Semper's original decorative scheme disappeared beneath overpaint and partitions.

1611 J. Speed Hist. Great Brit. ix. xii. 585/2 To ouer-paint his collusions and deuises for sauing his honour.

1614 W. Raleigh Hist. World i. ii. xvi. §1 465 I shall not neede to ouer-paint that which is garnished with better colours already, than I can lay on.

a1739 S. Wesley Poems Several Occasions (1862) 404 Our roving fancies will o'erpaint the truth: Ill follows good, and age succeeds to youth.

1845 Foreign Q. Rev. Apr. 19/2 A restorer, who, wishing simply to entitle himself to a certain fee for his labours, found this most readily effected by gaudily overpainting the draperies, distances, and sky.

1900 F. Litchfield Pottery & Porcelain 114 There is a description of Chinese known as ‘Clobbered’,..over-painted with..ornament..and sold for decorated Oriental china.

1978 M. Macdonald Rich are with you Always (BNC) 210 She had got a miniaturist to overpaint it with an enamel portrait of herself.

1990 Do it Yourself Apr. 28/2 Once it has been overpainted a few times it's pretty tough too.

1749 A. Hill in tr. Voltaire Meropé Ded. sig. A2 Him, whom no Verse o'erpaints, no Thoughts o'er-rate.

1870 J. H. Friswell Mod. Men of Lett. iv. 84 It is doubtful whether he over-paints the truth.

1892 J. D. Canning Ruined Mill in Poetry of Farm & Rural Life 40 Poets e'en may overpaint the charms of solitude.

1934 W. Lewis Communist Abroad in Time & Tide 15 Sept. 1142 The capitalist enemy and his ‘gunthugs’ is [sic] never over-painted.

1958 A. R. M. Lower Canadians in Making (1960) i. iii. 24 It is impossible to overpaint the effect of the Jesuit martyrdoms on French Canada's history.

1991 Hist. Today Oct. 23/1 Robin Hood's story romanticises, but does not exaggerate, the anger of the common people. Nevertheless, one must not over-paint the picture.