Issy & Grace's Conservation Journey

Title: Anchieta

Artist: Tadakiyo Sakai

Date: 1953

During my final week at the Pinacoteca I completed the final touches to the colour matching to finish my “educational activity for internship”.

Using a great English brand of water colours and paint brushes; Winsor & Newton – Cotman water colours and Winsor & Newton – University Series brushes, I completed my project on time.

Every time I created a new colour I recorded it in my notebook for future reference;

A selection of final photographs:

 

I am very pleased with my final outcome, my practical and professional skills have greatly improved and I feel confident with the work I have achieved during my placement. I can not believe how quickly time has passed and that I have completed my six week work placement.

Thank you again to all of the Restauro department at the Pinacoteca for all of your help at every stage of this project, Valeria for her support and advice throughout the project, Manuel for his Dremmel and papyrus cleaning expertise, Ana for her colour matching tips and Tatiana who has introduced me to a new and very interesting material and technique.

 

 

When I last wrote about the painting, “Terra de Parangua”, I just completed retouching the majority of the fills and applying a separation layer of Paraloid B72 in Xylene (1:5). Manuel told me that now the larger fills had been retouched, the smaller areas of dirt and cracks stood out more and I should focus on retouching them in the following week.

The first thing that I decided I should remove was the pencil mark at the top of the painting. I was originally reluctant to remove this as I was unsure if it was original or not so I applied varnish to it instead. As I mentioned in an earlier post, our course teaches us to be cautious about removing original material as it is part of the object’s history but as the treatment of the painting progressed, the removal of the pencil mark seemed more necessary. One reason for this was because it did not match the other pencil mark on the painting and it appeared to have been drawn in relation to the frame. Another reason that it should be removed was that its presence on the painting was distracting and it was likely that Manuel would tell me to remove it or retouch it.

I used MEC applied with cotton swabs to remove the separation layer and then the pencil mark. I then applied a new separation layer.

I then had to clean and fill the smaller holes in the painting. There were several of these smaller flaws to restore so I will just  give you an example of how I treated them.

 

Once I had filled and retouched the smaller holes and cracks, Manuel asked me why I hadn’t retouched/ removed three areas:

1. the pencil mark next to the second hill on the left.

2. the red dot highlighted in the circle on the left.

3. the blue dot highlighted in the circle on the right.

I explained that I had not retouched the pencil mark as I believed it to have been used by the artist and it was an important insight into how he had created the painting. I also told him that the red and blue dots looked like they could be original and that I was reluctant to paint over them for the same reason.

Manuel agreed that the pencil mark should be left as I had found it but argued that the red and blue dots should be retouched as they detracted from the painting and that after working with Valeria for many years, he believed that she would question why these areas had been left unretouched/removed. In order to compromise with the Pinacoteca’s preference for paintings with less flaws and the guidance that I have received from the University of Lincoln to not remove original material, I decided to retouch over them, rather than remove them.

 

 

After my final retouches I consulted Manuel and we agreed it was time for the big step of applying the final coat of varnish. We placed the painting on a makeshift stand in the fume cupboard, readjusting it so that the spray can was always level with the painting, therefore creating an even finish.

 

 

After spraying the varnish, I waited roughly ten minutes and then made sure the varnish was even using a large house painting brush. Once I had done this, I considered the treatment of the painting finished!

Everyone loves a before and after so here you are:

 

 

Thank you very much to all of the staff in the conservation department for all of their help and guidance, and for letting me restore part of their collection using their materials! Also thank you for the lovely leaving gifts and goodbye meals! I have had such a fantastic time and I still cannot believe I was lucky enough to work in such a good lab and museum with such great people in Brazil! Thank you to the rest of the staff at the Pinacoteca who have made Issy and I feel so welcome! We already miss all of you but I suppose that means that we will just have to come back to SP someday…

Hello!

It has been a while since I have written a post in my name. I did write bits and pieces in some of the last few posts in Issy’s name, but it feels like a long time since I’ve sat down and had a full writing session. I apologise for the delay in updates. It has been a chaotic last few weeks of packing, travelling to Buenos Aires and Rio, returning to Sao Paulo, coming home and then having to get a new laptop (my poor Toshiba only made it to week 4 of Brazil- RIP old timer). Its taken until today for me to be able to sit down on my own in the quiet and write up my last few accounts of our trip!

On Thursday 17th October we went on two more technical visits: the first to the stores of the Museu de Arte Sacra (Museum of Sacred Arts) and the second to “Atelier Raul Carvalho Restauração de Obras de Artes” (Raul Carvalho’s Workshop for the Restoration of Artworks).

We continued with our project work on Thursday morning and then left for lunch with Tatiana as she would escort us on the two trips. Tatiana treated us to a delicious dinner at a vegetarian Korean kilo restaurant. The food was lovely and we would have returned if we had had more time in Sao Paulo!

Museu de Arte Sacra (Museum of Sacred Art)

Tatiana was excited for us to see the stores at the Museu de Arte Sacra as they have recently been relocated into a new building. She felt it was important for us to see another type of collection and how it was organised. We also found it interesting to see how another museum survives on limited resources.

We were shown around by Carmen, the museum’s conservator who cared for the collection of 18000 objects with a small team of two other paid assistants and a few volunteers.  Carmen was a really friendly guide and answered all of our questions with enthusiasm but as she could not speak English, Tatiana helpfully translated our conversations.

The museum is owned by the government and its collection consists mainly of Brazilian religious objects. Some are small figures, including nativity sets and others are larger objects related to the church such as furniture and paintings. One of the reasons why the museum’s total number of objects is so high is that all of the nativity figures and some of the frames are classed as individual objects.

 

 

 

The Museu de Arte Sacra use maps to show the location of the objects, meaning that they must be kept in the same position until they are displayed and then they must be returned to that position afterwards.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Atelier Raul Carvalho Restauração de Obras de Artes (Raul Carvalho’s Workshop for the Restoration of Artwork)

After our visit to the Museu de Arte Sacra, Issy, Tatiana and I headed over to the studio of Raul Carvalho, a private conservator who used to work at the Pinacoteca. Tatiana thought it might be interesting for us to see a private studio as it is another example of how a conservator can work. She thought that Raul’s studio would be especially worthwhile visiting as it is well established and he has had many years of experience as a conservator.

Unfortunately Raul was away and could not show us around so his technician guided us instead. While Raul’s studio was very quirky and homely, it was also clear that he had spent many years developing his own organisation systems and learning to make use of the small converted house in which he worked.