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Laboratory for Scientific Restoration of Monumental Painting Laboratory director Adelia M. Blyakher The need for creation of a laboratory to restore monumental painting arose as a result of the discovery of remarkable wall paintings and sculptures on the territory of the Central Asian republics in the course of extensive archeological excavations carried out in the years following World War II. A second circumstance which highlighted the need for this new field of restoration was the unsatisfactory state of preservation of the large Hermitage collection of wall paintings on loess plaster and painted loess sculptures from Eastern Turkestan which remained in the museum during the Siege of Leningrad (1941-1944). In the years 1948-1950, P.I. Kostrov and a group of specialist chemists developed a restoration methodology based on the application of a very resistant and solid polymer - low viscosity polybutylmethacrylate (PBMA). Kostrov's restoration method was applied to a whole range of work, from uncovering paintings during archeological excavations to final laboratory processing and display in the museum. In 1954 a workshop was created for restoring wall paintings and loess sculptures. P.I. Kostrov became its director. At the time a group of staff came together in the workshop to form the basic team. Their educational backgrounds were in art history, archeology and painting and they studied the restorer's craft under Kostrov, who was also a gifted pedagogue. In 1980 this workshop was renamed the Laboratory for Scientific Restoration of Monumental Painting. Its staff are highly qualified art restorers with specialties in all areas of the workshop's activities. From the moment of its creation the laboratory has been moving in two directions. The first is linked with work on materials coming from the archeological expeditions. The second relates to the restoration of the Hermitage's museum collections. The method of restoration which was initially created to conserve a painting glued onto a loess base was later applied to conserve loess sculptures, and still later, after a number of changes, to fresco painting on lime-based plasters. By varying the solvents, the concentrations of the solutions, the regimes of fixing the painting as well as drying, it was possible to create a broad range of restoration methods and extensive technical possibilities in order for the laboratory to work on many different monuments which were executed in a variety of techniques including glue, tempera and encaustics and having a variety of foundation materials (wood, stone, ceramics, plaster and papier-mache among others). Over the years the laboratory has carried out restoration on thousands of exhibits including unique monuments of culture: the Blue Room (7th-8th centuries, Penjikent), the Red Room (8th century, Varakhsha), a sculptural frieze (7th-8th centuries, Penjikent), a large complex of 14th century frescoes from the Church of the Intercession of the Virgin in Pskov, nine large frescoes painted by the school of Raphael, the unique large-scale 11th century Pranidhi painting from the Bezeklik Monastery in Eastern Turkestan, an ancient fresco portraying a ship (3rd century B.C.), a 6th-7th century ceramic vase from Merv (collection of the Ashkhabad Historical Museum), a miniature 13th -14th century mosaic icon of The Saint Warrior (State Institute of the History of Georgian Art), and a 6th century Egyptian icon of S. Bishop Abraham (State Museums in Berlin). Restoration programmes: 1. Restoration of the fresco The
Virgin Hodegetria and Child (14th century) 3. Restoration of a large-format 11th-century mural from Tuyuk-Mazar, Eastern Turkistan |
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