Establishment of Pranas Gudynas Center
for Restoration
The Pranas Gudynas Restoration Centre is the main training base for
restorers of movable art treasures in Lithuania. The Centre provides
proper instructions for restorers who are not professionally trained,
now working at some of the local museums. Responding to the needs of the
museum curators, workshops, seminars and lectures, related to the
conservation and care of museum collections, are held at the Centre.
Every year, the Restoration Centre staff members attend international
conferences, annual meetings, and courses and participate in internship
and fellowship programs in Lithuania and abroad.
Establishment of Pranas Gudynas Center
for
Restoration
On December 13, 1978, the Lithuanian Minister of Culture signed a
decree, proposed by the director of the Lithuanian Art Museum, to
establish a Centre for Conservation and Restoration of Works of Art at
the Lithuanian Art Museum. It was not a new project. Initial steps were
made in 1946, when the first workshops for restoration of paintings were
established at the Vilnius Art Museum, the predecessor of the Lithuanian
Art Museum. From that time, an idea was kept alive to establish
restoration laboratories where museum objects could be scientifically
investigated, conserved and restored and where conservation scientists
could provide all necessary assistance to the Lithuanian museum
community.
Today, more than sixty qualified experts - restorers, physicists,
chemists, biologists and art historians are working in the laboratories
of the Centre. Cooperation between the various specialists is one of the
most important conditions for the successful activities of the
institution. Works of decorative, visual and folk arts, archaeological
artifacts and ethnographic objects are being conserved and restored at
the Centre. Technological and art historical analyses are carried out
for the works of art under restoration.
Departments:
The Restoration Centre consists of nine departments. Every department
has its own history.
Department for Restoration of
Paintings
This is the oldest department.
Before the restoration process begins, every painting that arrives at
the Painting Department is immediately examined by specialists of the
Scientific Department, using a variety of scientific techniques.
X-Radiography helps to reval format alterations and compositional
changes, to detect retouched areas and to assess the state of
preservation of paint and ground layers. Exposure of the surface of a
painting to ultraviolet rays causes the old layers of paint and varnish
to fluoresce which helps to detect areas of later overpainting. Pigments
of the paints and composition of the ground are investigated by
microchemical tests. This provides additional information on the
materials and techniques used by the artist. Such information enables
the restorer to choose the most appropriate restoration methods and
procedures in each case.
Often, the canvas serving as a support for a painting, has
dateriorated, been deformed and torn. In places, the paint and ground
layers are entirely lost or covered with cracks of various kinds, paints
are flaking or crumbling, the varnish has darkened or, on the contrary,
gone white. In such cases the paint and ground layers are fixed, cracks
and canvas deformations are flattened. In the deterioration of a
supporting canvas is extreme, and if it does not fulfil its functions
anymore, the painting is lined on a new piece of canvas.
The main objective for every modern restorer is to preserve the
original appearance of a painting as much as possible, with minimal
changes in its material structure.
Almost every painting restored before the 20th century has been
overpainted. Restorers of earlier times, most often, the artists
themselves didn’t manage to preserve an original painting. Usually,
their concern was to restore a painting to its like-new look. Nowadays,
in most cases, such overpaintings are removed.
The skills, experience and specialised know-how of a professional
restorer are needed to thin an aged varnish layer, to remove dirt and
areas of later overpainting, to retouch filled losses, to restore
missing fragments. These are the procedures of artistic restoration.
Since 1946, more, than several thousand paintings have been restored
at the Paintings Department. Among them, the most significant works of
art, such as the miraculous image of the Mother of God (known as the “Madonna
of Sapiega”) from St. Michael’s Church in Vilnius, the Mother of God
from the Vilnius Ausra Gate, portraits of Bishops of Vilnius and
Samogitia from the famous Bishops’ Portrait Gallery, pictures painted
by Pranciskus Smuglevicius, the prominent Lithuanian artist, canvasses
by Constantine Villani commissioned for the Vilnius Archcathedral and
many other paintings important in Lithuanian history and culture.
Department for Restoration of Paper
The Department for Paper Restoration was established in 1958. Now it
is one of the largest departments of the Centre. Qualified paper
restorers are conserving, treating and restoring museum objects on
paper, cardboard of paper mache, usually works of art produced in
different techniques, such as prints (metalcuts, woodcuts, lino-cuts,
engravings, etchings, lithographs, etc.), drawings (in graphite,
charcoal, chalks, sanguine, pastels, and inks) and, of course, paintings
(in water-colours, gouache colours, tempera or oils).
Manuscripts, documents, maps, sometimes photographs and, more
recently, museum objects on parchment are restored at the Paper
Department as well.
Deterioration of works on paper is usually the result of paper ageing
process. The intensity of the aging process depends on the intrinsic
features of different papers (composition of papers fibre, methods of
manufacture, pigments and inks used in print or drawing techniques), and
external factors (acidic atmospheric pollutants, ultraviolet radiation,
fluctuations in temperature and relative humidity, biological agents).
Decomposing paper usually yellows, embrittles and finely crumbles away.
Mould and bacteria in biologically affected areas attack the size in the
paper, discolour and destroy it. Sometimes, the sheets of paper are
attacked by insects or rodents. Large sheets of paper (plans, maps) are
often kept folded, which causes cracks from folding and the image is
rubbed away.
The process of paper restoration is carried out in several stages:
first of all, the object is disinfected and cleaned mechanically, then
water-soluble inks and paints are fixed, stains are removed, the paper
is washed, bleached, deacidified and resized. Tears and breaks are glued
together, holes are patched, and missing corners and edges are replaced.
If necessary, a restored sheet can be pasted to a thin backing paper.
While restoring a watercolour or a print, preservation or restoration of
the integrity of an original image is as important as the treatment of
paper.
One of the most significant and responsible tasks for the specialists
of the Paper Department was conservation of works of art by the
prominent Lithuanian artist Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis
(1875-1911).
Department for Restoration of
Sculpture
Statues, busts, reliefs, bas-relief, medals and other works of art
made of stone, marble, terra-cotta, plaster and other materials are
brought to the Restoration Centre in diverse conditions. Some of them
are badly scratched all over and with usually destroyed surface
decorations, others are broken into small pieces with some of the
fragments missing. In such cases a lot of careful and painstaking work
is required to reassemble the object. Sometimes the restorer has to
replace missing fragments. Sculptures made of plaster are most often in
need of restoration. They are more vulnerable because of the fragility
of the material. They are often brought to the laboratory with arms and
legs missing, fingers or noses broken away. Statues made of terra cotta
or marble often suffer similar damages.
After long and tedious research, and in close collaboration with
chemists, the Centre’s restorers invented a new material serving as a
substitute for marble.
Wooden sculptures were mostly kept out-doors for years. From constant
exposure to daylight, wind, strong and frequent fluctuations in
temperature and relative humidity, mould, bacteria and insect attacks,
wood begins to rot and starts to crumble. Paint and ground layers of the
polychrome sculptures become detached. In such cases the wood must be
consolidated with polymers, crumbly paint and ground layers fixed.
One of the most difficult tasks for a restorer is to remove later,
often-superimposed paint layers. Chemical, physical tests and art
historical research help to identify the earliest possible time of
origin of the paint layers and, to some extent, their state of
preservation. Careful examination of the paint layers helps to decide if
it is possible to expose the original polychromy or to leave a later,
better-preserved paint layer.
Department for Restoration of Ceramics
A laboratory for ceramics restoration was founded in 1968. Today,
working for all Lithuanian museums, they are conserving and restoring
artifacts, made of clay, bone, glass, and porcelain, decorated Easter
eggs, “verbos” (traditional Pal Sunday decorative bough, made of
dried grasses and flowers, symbolising a palm branch) and archaeological
finds (urns, pots, tiles, plates, jugs, amber artifacts, etc.) from the
Stone Age to recent times. When excavated, archaeological finds, often
just a few sherds of a pot or a tile, covered with hard coatings, tend
to dry out rapidly. They are prone to deformation and are sensitive to
mechanical pressures. They need to be immediately cleaned and
consolidated. If a restorer has to reconstruct a find, a pot, for
instance, a reconstruction design is drawn according to the profiles of
the sherds are fastened to the surface of the model. Missing fragments
of a find are replaced with plaster.
Lithuanian museums posses large collections made up of a wide variety
of artifacts made of clay: black pots, glazed plates and dishes, pots
rounded up with birch bark, plastic figures, etc., which often require
restoration and conservation.
Department for Restoration of Textile
Textile restoration at the restoration Centre was started in 1966.
Textiles are one of the most vulnerable materials. The principal causes
of most damage in textiles are the effect of unsuitable climatic
conditions, light and biological agents. Tapestries, gobelins,
vestments, ethnographic costumes, ecclesiastical objects, toilet-cases,
fans, bonnets, purses embroidered in beads, small bags, and many other
objects of decorative art are being restored at the Textiles Department.
The main objective of a textile restorer is to conserve the article and
prevent its further decoration. To clean articles of heterogeneous
composition, consisting of fabric combined with leather, parchment,
bone, glass, wood or metal, is the most difficult task. After cleaning,
damaged textiles are often attached to a supporting clothe of similar
structure and dyed to mach the original. When restoring the more
significant works of art, such as tapestries or gobelins, missing
fragments are being reconstructed applying exactly the same technique as
in the original, using similar threads and dyes. Reconstruction of an
artwork to its original condition is tedious and time-consuming. But it
justifies itself, because a reconstructed tapestry or gobelin becomes
very close to the original, with the reconstructed areas making it
firmer and stronger.
Department for Restoration of Metal
The Metal Department was founded in 1978. Artifacts made of diverse
metal alloys, such as iron, tin, copper, precious metals, etc., are
conserved and restored in its laboratories. Differences in metal
processing technologies and conditions of preservation of metal objects
influence the degree of their deterioration and corrosion. The main
target of metal restorer is to stop or at least slow down the processes
of corrosion. The metal artifacts are cleaned chemically,
electrochemically and by electrolysis. Clean surfaces are coated.
Dismantling or reassembly of the objects, replacement of their missing
parts or fragments, requires very thorough and accurate work.
Department for Restoration of Furniture
The Furniture Department was established in 1979. Antique furniture
of different periods, styles, workshops and from various Lithuanian
museums are restored here. Mostly they are damaged or destroyed by
insects, broken, with warping and twisting parts, lifted or loose
veneer, darkening finish, with missing parts and lost fragments of
marquetry. The furniture restorers are not only highly qualified joiners
who make a piece of furniture stable for use, repair its broken parts,
flatten deformed boards, fix its frame or glue down the veneer, but they
can also to reconstruct missing fragments according to original style,
restore inlays and marquetry; they also know how to treat metal, bone or
tortoiseshell.
Department for Conservation of
Archaeology
The Archaeology Department was established in 1985. Till then
archaeological finds had been conserved in the laboratories for textile,
metal or ceramics restoration. Nowadays restorers are treating
archaeological finds recovered from dry soil or waterlogged sites. When
brought to the laboratory, excavated artifacts are generally extremely
decomposed. After they are covered, the normally slow disintegration
processes become more intensive due to physical and chemical changes in
their environment. The aim of a restorer is to stop or to slow the
processes. It is important to preserve the finds and to expose such
properties and values which are the most characteristic and can provide
important information for archaeological research.
First of all the recovered artifacts are investigated physically,
chemically and biologically. This helps to choose the most suitable
conservation methods.
Archaeological textiles are rarely found. Such finds are disinfected,
cleaned with acqueous solutions and organic solvents. Old fibres, losing
their elasticity and mechanical strength, are consolidated, the cloth is
plasticised.
Objects of waterlogged wood are conserved by gradual replacement of
the water in the spongy wood with high molecular weight substances -
polymers of ethylene glycol. Objects made of horn and bone most often
are consolidated with polymer solutions in organic solvents.
The Department has started to conserve archaeological leather. New
methods for cleaning, softening and consolidating of leather artifacts
are being developed.
Archaeological finds made from metals - silver, copper alloy, iron -
usually are extremely deteriorated. Encrustations of metal oxides and
salts often misshape the original form of an object, covering surface
decorations. More often the core of a metal artifact is missing and its
shape is preserved only by a thick layer of metal oxides and salts.
Metal finds are cleaned mechanically, chemically or electrochemically.
If the metal is in fairly condition it can be cleaned by electrolysis.
Once cleaned, the artifacts are conserved by coating their surface. If
an object is in very poor condition, or if there is no core in the metal
(this is determined by rentgenography), such finds are consolidated with
polymers or with a mixture of paraffin and wax.
Scientific Department
The Scientific Department was established in 1968, today employing
chemists, biologists, physicists, art historians, archivist,
photographer.
Chemists are investigating new technologies and materials used in
restoration processes. Stability, inertness and other properties of
materials which have direct influence on an object are examined under
artificial aging processes. The technologists determine if suggested
materials suit the original techniques and materials, if they are
reversible and soluble in specific solvents. They determine the original
technology of an object being restored by microchemical tests. Make
paper and thin-layer chromatography. They define pigments and binding
media, investigate paper and textile fibers and their acidity, determine
the composition of metal alloys by spectroscopy.
Every object under restoration is examined by X-radiography, infrared
photography or ultraviolet fluorescence.
The biologist investigates harmful biological environment for the
preservation of museum objects, dependent on local ecological
conditions, micro-organisms, insects and beetles, typical to a museum
environment. Microbiological composition of air in museum exhibition
halls and storerooms is periodically controlled.
All data obtained during examination of an object and in the
processes of its restoration are thoroughly documented. Conditions
reports are made, methods of investigation and restoration processes are
precisely described, all the materials used in restoration processes and
methods of their applications are recorded. Besides, restoration
techniques and technologies approved by the Restoration Board are also
recorded.
