Isabelle’s final update for “Anchieta”

Before treatment
Before treatment
After treatment
After treatment

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”.

Isabelle colour matching her new fill.
Isabelle colour matching her new fill.

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;

Isabelle's colour mixing guide
Isabelle’s colour mixing guide

A selection of final photographs:

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From above – closer image of the right hand. New moulded thumb using Miliput and wrist using coloured Mastic, colour matched using water colours.
Colour matching over existing fills
Colour matching over existing fills around the side of the base
Annotated base to show the areas of re-touching
Annotated photo of the base to show the areas of re-touching
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From above
Left wrist
Left wrist – new armature connecting the hand to the arm, remoulded wrist and colour matching over new fills.

 

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.

 

 

Final Stages of the Treatment of “Terra de Parangua”

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.

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“Terra de Parangua” when I last wrote about it on 14th October.
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.

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Pencil mark along the top edge of the painting.

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

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Me removing the pencil mark from the top edge of the painting.

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.

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One of the smaller holes highlighted in the red circle.
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Close up of hole in painting (x40 mag).
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Hole filled with Modostuc (x40 mag).
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Hole after filling and retouching.

 

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.

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The red and blue dots highlighted in red circles.

 

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Close up of red and blue dots.
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Red dot under microscope (x40 mag). It appears to be paint, possibly original.
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Blue dot under micrscope (x40 mag). It also appears to be paint, possibly original.

 

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Close up of the area where the blue and red dots have been retouched.

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.

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Reversible varnish by Windsor and Newton.

 

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Me about to varnish before we had adjusted the stand.

 

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Me varnishing after we had adjusted the stand.

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:

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“Terra de Parangua” by Jose Perrisinotto before treatment.
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“Terra de Parangua” by Jose Perrisinotto before treatment.

 

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“Terra de Parangua” by Jose Perrisinotto after treatment.

 

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“Terra de Parangua” by Jose Perrisinotto after treatment.

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…

Technical Visit: Part Two!

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.

 

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Tatiana, Issy and Carmen in the stores of the Museu de Arte Sacra

 

 

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Issy, Tatiana and the a typical example of how most of the collection of figures are stored.

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.

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The position of the objects on the shelves corresponds to maps of their locations kept by the museum.

 

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There was a diverserange of nativity sets including this fantastic disco ball!

 

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Positioning of RH monitor

 

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Close up of RH Monitor
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Some of the frames were registered as objects in their own right.

 

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The temporary storage facility in the store.
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Custom made wooden stand for staffs.

 

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Custom made box for hat.
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Custom made storage box with handles to remove hat.

 

 

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.

 

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Raul’s studio from the outside is the building with the green door.

 

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Very small storage room.

 

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Solvents have been numbered so that cleaning tests can be recorded more easily.

 

 

We´ll be back in a week!

We are sorry that the blog has been so empty this week- we´ve been rushing around trying to get everything finished and say proper goodbyes to everybody at the Pinacoteca!

We will give a proper full account of our last few days at the Pinacoteca and our last week in South America from the week commencing Sunday 27th October!

We are off to Buenos Aires this evening so we are frantically packing and tidying as Tatiana will pick us up to go to the airport in fourty minutes!

Thank you all for reading up until now! Please come back next week if you´re interested in how our placement ended!

Until then we will leave you with a little taster of our last day!

 

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Issy and her sculpture!
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Grace and her painting!
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Our Pinacoteca Restauro Family minus Valeria and Tonhio!

Technical visits

This week we have been very busy with technical visits, we have visited four very different studios.

  1. MAB – Museum of Art in Brazil
  2. MASP – Museum of art in Sao Paulo
  3. MAS – Museum of Scared art
  4. Raul private conservation Studio.

I will write about the first two today and Grace will write about our second visits tomorrow, our last ever day at the Pinacoteca.

Something that has made all of our technical visits slightly more funny is the way that Brazilians pronounce words with an extra eee sound at the end of a word, for example my name is Isabelle but Brazilian´s pronounce it Isabell-y. When we visited the MASP, MAB and MAS, everyone said to us that we were going to visit the MASP-Y, MAB-Y, MAS-Y and as you can imagine we got very confused as to where these places were!

It also adds a wonderful afternoon highlight when we do not just go for coffee break, we go for COFFEE BREAKY!

 

As you can probably see that the Brazilians love an abbreviation!

When we arrived at all of the museums they took down our ID/Passport number when we entered; at MAB we had armed guards escort us through the turnstile! It makes you quite uneasy when you feel like you are being tracked everywhere you go.

  1. MAB

http://www.faap.br/museu/

We were not allowed to take photographs for security reasons, so I am afraid you will not be able to see the MAB.

This is a small private museum with only three exhibition areas, well I say small but all three of these areas are massive one of them is about the half the size of the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern in London, this is currently exhibiting Klaus Mitteldorf´s photography in a exhibition called ´Work` 1983-2013.

Klaus Mitteldorf
Klaus Mitteldorf

We were shown around by two lovely ladies, who both spoke very good English, they showed us around all of the areas of the museum from the stores to the exhibition areas. Their lab is very small and a singular lab, they do not undertake any conservation or restoration work at the museum its self, only minor interventions, everything else is contracted out to private conservators. The only conservation work the team carries out is preventive, for example at the moment they are taking down an exhibition and also changing all of the storage systems to be able to accommodate recent acquisitions.

 

There are only 11 people working within the whole museum a director, a curator/museologist, 4 in the restoration department, 3 people in the education department, a producer and a secretary. This is very small indeed; we could not believe that the whole museum is run by such a small amount of people, especially seeing as their collection and temporary exhibitions always include very famous artists, both worldwide and Brazilian.

 

2. MASP

http://masp.art.br/masp2010/

The MASP is the main museum for art in Sao Paulo; it is on the busiest street of Sao Paulo and holds a collection of 8,000 works from some of the world’s most famous artists including Monet, Rembrandt, Goya and Rafael.

But the strangest thing is the MASP only has one conservator, one curator and one technician in charge of this fantastic collection!

Karen, the conservator was very nice, kind and spoke to us in very good English. She showed us the lab that they used as an office and store room more than for practical works as once again the museum only carries out minor interventions and contracts out work to private conservators.

Grace and Karen looking at the makeshift accelerator cupboard
Grace and Karen looking at the makeshift accelerator cupboard in the lab
The small lab at the end of a corridor
The small lab at the end of a corridor

She also showed us around the exhibition areas; here she talked through all of the pieces that have been restored. One piece by Poussin that was completely resorted by a conservator from the Louvre in Paris, the final piece is outstanding and a must see at the MASP. But I feel as though they should make this a focal point, this wonderful painting was ripped, frameless and has major losses then conserved back into full glory only 3 years ago, but unfortunately there was not a sign or picture about its previous state. The museum also works a lot with exchanges, for example the Rafael – Resurrection of Christ – went on loan to the National Gallery in London for a special exhibition. The MASP loaned it to the National Gallery if they completed some conservation work on it while it was in London.

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The MASP is a private museum that uses private investors to invest money into the collection to fund the restoration of the worst deteriorating and most important objects. Karen has put together a portfolio of the works needing conservation or restoration detailing each pieces needs, some only need new frames other need complete restoration, then she puts the cases forward to possible investors. She said that this has been quite successful so far, but there is still a lot of work that needs attention or to be presented better.

In the lab they also had a Cézanne, both Grace and I were probably too excited by this as we could have literally touched it! It is in the labs at the moment as a conservator from the Metropolitan museum in New York is doing some research into Cezanne´s use of graphite, very interesting.

The Cezanne on the left hand side
The Cezanne on the left hand side

We have found it very interesting to visit two other museums in Sao Paulo, to see the difference in how each museum works and how they cope with so few staff to help with the collections. We can see now that the Pinacoteca is the best museum in Sao Paulo to work at for its resources into conservation and restoration, we feel very lucky to be working in such a great place.