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The restoration of stained glass from the Marienkirche in Frankfurt an der Oder During 2001-2002 the Laboratory for Scientific Restoration of Works of Applied Art (A.I. Bantikov, director) restored 15 of 111 14th-century panels that made up three stained-glass windows in the Marienkirche (Church of the Virgin Mary) in Frankfurt an der Oder. Six centuries of pernicious atmospheric conditions, vandalism and war took their toll on the stained glass. In 1943 the panels were removed from the windows by the Germans to save them from bomb damage. They were placed first in the church itself and later in storage in Potsdam. From there they were removed to the Soviet Union and given for keeping to the Hermitage where they remained from 1946 to 2002. When they came into the museum, all the damage to the glass and lead was recorded. In 2001 the Hermitage created a Laboratory for the Restoration of Stained-Glass Panels with a team of three specialist restorers, three research workers specializing in mediaeval art and an expert in the chemistry of glass under the direct supervision of the museum's director, Mikhail Piotrovsky. By October 2001 the preliminary work had been completed, including a visual inspection and description of the state of preservation, photographic recording, the production of drawings indicating losses and broken pieces of glass, and also glass and lead that had been introduced by previous restoration work, an analysis of written sources, and laboratory research into the corrosion of the glass panes and the condition of the lead. A computer database was created to store the information. All the stained-glass panels were broken in many places, each having between 35 and 70 cracks. All the 14th-century pieces of glass were covered on the outside by multiple layers of atmospheric corrosion that was also present to a lesser degree on the inner side of the glass. In all the panels some of the pieces had been subjected to mechanical cleaning with wire brushes on the outside. This operation was probably carried out during the 1830 restoration in the workshop of Karl Friedrich Schinkel. The corrosion was the cause of the worsened condition of the painting in black. The difference in colour and chemical composition of the different pieces also influenced their condition. The purples and blues were the worst affected. The lead had been entirely replaced during the 1830 restoration and was on the whole in quite a good state. All the panels retained remnants of some white mastic evidently used by the 19th-century restorers to secure broken panes, make good small losses and chips between the pieces of glass and the lead surround. In many of the panels broken panes are also secured by lead seals on both sides. Besides the original 14th-century glass, all the panels contain some material produced in the 19th century. The laboratory carried out a restoration without disassembling the panels. The joints and mastics used were based on materials and methods selected and developed in conjunction with the Hermitage's restorers and research laboratories. The 19th-century lead and glass insertions were retained except where there was deep-going corrosion and irreversible deformation of the lead, or where the glass inserts crudely distorted the integral perception of the work and did not match the original glass in either thickness or structure. The lost fragments of glass were made good using pieces selected for colour and thickness. No pattern was applied to these pieces, but they were toned using glass paints and annealed in a muffle furnace. It was decided to leave the corrosional accretions untouched so as not to expose the stained-glass panels to the risk of further degeneration from a stable condition. The missing lead was made good by analogy with the cross-section and in keeping with the chemical composition of the 19th-century lead. The missing iron fastening rods were replaced with titanium that does not react with lead. For display purposes the stained-glass panels were inserted in frames made of wood. In April 2002 an exhibition of 15 stained-glass panels from the Marienkirche was organized in the Hermitage. On 5 April 2002, the State Duma adopted a law on returning 111 14th-century stained-glass panels from the Church of the Virgin Mary to Germany. On 10 April 2002, the Federation Council in its meeting approved the law of the State Duma. On 28 May 2002, the State Hermitage Museum held negotiations with representatives of Germany's Culture Ministry on the return of the stained-glass panels. |
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