Conservation and the Green Monster
As xensen mentioned in his blog post “Gilt-y Pleasures,” the Emerald Cities exhibition involves an enormous amount of conservation work. Lots of the artwork that you’ll see had been damaged in some way — some by the flood of a hurricane, some by the Southeast Asian climate, and some by previous conservation work that did as much harm as good. And some objects just weren’t meant to last long in the first place.
One of these, a painting on cloth, earned the nickname “The Green Monster” among the conservators. It’s a tall painting in which all the green paint was made of a copper-based pigment. The copper pigment is highly acidic, and it ate holes through the backing cotton fabric. Check out this video as Director of Conservation Katie Holbrow and Conservator Shiho Sasaki talk about patching the hundreds of green holes in the painting.
2 Responses to “Conservation and the Green Monster”
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xensen on June 18th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
The painting is a Standing Buddha flanked by two disciples; and five scenes of the Buddha’s previous lives, approx. 1850-1900. Thailand, paint and gold on cloth. Gift from Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s Southeast Asian Art Collection, 2006.27.122.4.
According to the entry by Forrest McGill in the exhibition catalogue (just now off to the printer), “Beneath the Buddha flanked by two disciples are arranged scenes of the final five of the last ten stories of the Buddha’s previous lives. The earlier five stories are depicted on another painting (not included in the exhibition) that is a mate to this one. Each scene is labeled with the name of the boddhisattva in the scene and sometimes several descriptive words. The scenes are arranged with the sixth story (that of Bhuridatta) at upper left and the tenth (that of Vessantara) at the bottom. Along the bottom edge is a brief inscription giving the name of the painting’s sponsor as Mother Khong Phu.”
edeb on June 20th, 2009 at 2:12 am
Seeing the work of the conservators such as that in this video gives me renewed respect for the artists who made these works and the artistry involved in their conservation.