What's New at Preservation Arts- Fall 2021
Object Department:
Greek Skyphos - Reassembly Treatment
It's an exciting moment when an antiquity arrives for treatment at the studio. During the client's childhood, his family was living in Egypt when his parents acquired this Greek Skyphos terracotta with black-figure slip decoration. Since then it had been sitting on display on a shelf until it was bumped and damaged. It was brought to our studio broken into 21 shards.
The vessel is decorated in a similar manner of Haimon Painter, an anonymous 5th-century BC Ancient Greek painter and draughtsman and prolific producers of skyphoi (deep drinking vessels), and depicts two figures on the exterior, one robed, gesturing with their hands. Each figure is flanked by two stylized palmettes.
The vessel was surface cleaned, the break edges were consolidated and the shards were bonded and allowed to dry for several days under slight pressure from a linen gauze wrapping. The losses were infilled, which was tinted to match the color of the clay body and finally inpainted to match the surrounding color of the terracotta and black slip.
Paper Department:
Amélie Dillemann - Delaminating of corrugated cardboard
Emilie van der Hoorn, Associate Paper Conservator
Contemporary French artist and designer Amélie Dillemann is a master of using corrugated shipping boxes. This material, that is normally tossed or recycled, is transformed by the artist into museum pieces that trick and manipulate the eye into viewing luxury goods from a different perspective. This cardboard suitcase, entitled LV Suitcase had a broken handle and several collage pieces that were torn and detaching on its arrival into the studio.
The suitcase was cleaned using a vacuum and a soft brush to remove the surface dirt and dust. The lifting collage elements were consolidated with methylcellulose and weighted until dried. Finally, the handle was reattached by inserting a strip of Japanese paper into the center of the torn area and secured, and an additional strip of toned heavy weight Japanese paper was attached to the inside edge for added support.
Painting Department:
Judy Chicago - Inpainting Treatment
Kelsey Fox, Associate Paintings Conservator
We were thrilled to work on this iconic Judy Chicago, Dome Drawing, 1968, prismacolor drawing on paper. She recently had an exhibition Human Geometries at Jessica Silverman Gallery and currently is showing at the DeYoung, Judy Chicago: A Retrospective until January 2022.
Over time, this drawing has had issues with the pigment bonding to the coated paper as the media had begun to crack, flake and had losses in areas. The treatment performed included removing the old inpainting, consolidation of the edges and applying a barrier layer to receive the new inpainting that is sympathetic to the coloration of the drawing.
Please contact Preservation Arts for any conservation projects you may be considering. Call 510-808-7894 or email info@preservation-arts.com.