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Restoring the grand interiors of the General
Staff Building The restoration work in the east wing of the General Staff Building is ongoing. In summer 2011, the building that was home to the Ministry of Finance was found to contain unknown 19th century paintings. The paintings were removed so that restoration work could begin. The specialists decided that they should be preserved; after the restoration is complete, they will be on display in the museum. The method for restoring monumental glue painting on lime plaster after it has been removed for an artifact was developed by P.I. Kostrov, the head restorer of the State Hermitage Museum, in the 1950's. Over six decades of use, this method was developed and refined; previously unknown capabilities of the foundational restraining material were identified, and new approaches to working with it were introduced. It is difficult to describe the entire restoration process and do justice to how truly huge the task facing the restorers was; let us limit ourselves to the fundamentals of a process that is at once tremendously difficult and very important for the museum. The paintings were removed piece by piece, and then reassembled like a mosaic. The damaged areas were filled in with the help of a paste consisting of ground plaster, chalk and synthetic adhesive. After a fragment of a painting is reinforced in this way, its back side is straightened out and a square contour model of the same size as the original is made from polyurethane foam. The reinforced fragments are then placed face down. In order to strengthen them further, the restorers use several layers of gauze, set up wooden frames and prime them with liquid polyurethane resin. Specialists from the State Hermitage Museum's Laboratory for the Restoration of Monumental Painting participated in this process. Rare paintings by the Italian artist Giovanni Battista Scotti were preserved in the grand interior of the General Staff Building. Every hall requires its own unique method of restoration, which the restorer is forced to work out as he goes along. In the ceiling lamps one could see a mixed technique; painting on the muslins and fresco on the plaster. The muslins have an irregular shape that mirrors the outline of the compositions depicted on them. IT is based on a thin, flat cloth. The muslins are held into the plaster with an adhesive bead 9 (with a width of 1.5x2.5 cm), and studs hammered in along the perimeter of the canvasses and around the image itself. During the course of the restoration process, the experts also reinforce the paint layer. Surface contaminants are removed from glue paintings on plaster with breadcrumbs, moistened with a water-alcohol solution, and from the surface of muslins and tempera-glue paintings with a formoplast and a soft abrasive sponge. With the greatest care, toning and recordings of the original paint layer
that have changed in tone and color are removed. The most important goal,
in the words of M.G. Rogozny, one of the restorers, is preserving the
artist's original painting as much as possible. Macrophotography and radiography
of the remaining painting is conducted. A new, sparing method of sealing
cracks has been developed, via injection of slaked lime, which is specially
delivered from Germany. |
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Copyright © 2011 State Hermitage Museum |
