Young and enthusiastic professionals from museums and cultural organizations were our guests last week and we were more than pleased to share our knowledge and understanding about the field of museum, conservation and collection management with them. Ms. Seema Gera, the Curator at Govt. Museum and Art Gallery of Chandigarh and Ms. Niyati Jigyasu, Professor, Chitkara School of Planning and Architecture, Chitkara University, were the … Continue reading Workshop Concluded
The traditional role of museums is to collect objects and materials of cultural, religious and historical importance, preserve them, research into them and present them to the public for the purpose of education and enjoyment. Emmanuel N. Arinze President, Commonwealth Association of Museums Public lecture at the National Museum, Georgetown, Guyana Monday, May 17, 1999 What if the exhibits are vandalized or wrongly treated so much in their … Continue reading Role of Museum Galleries and Conservation for objects that are disfigured by past restoration attempts
noun (Colours) a reddish pigment derived from iron ore the preliminary sketch found on a rough underlayer called the arriccio on the wall, underneath the fresco While treating very old wall paintings, i was surprised to see sinopia showing up at places different from the final figure’s outline. When i studied more and more sinopia history, purpose and real examples, i learnt that the sinopia usually … Continue reading Sinopia
This pair of oil on canvas paintings has brittle canvas that had been repaired in a rush. Lets look into the problems they had, in the following pictures: These torn canvases were repaired with patches of canvas from back, which were in turn stuck to a wooden board backing. At one place in one of the two canvases, a very rough stitching attempt has been … Continue reading Brittle canvas with Bad repairs and backing (part 1)
We, at Heritage Preservation Atelier invite all those who are interested in learning more about Paper conservation to meet and plan our next practical workshop on paper conservation along with theoretic lessons. Here is what we propose as an initiative. You are all welcome to add/advise/suggest further. Duration : 2 days (Dates in the month of October and November can be suggested in comments.) Theoretical … Continue reading Planning the next learning activity
Interns – Chetna, Subhashini, Keerat and Lovely As a team of Heritage Preservation Atelier (HPA) we went to Dada Bhagwan Foundation at Adalaj in district Gandhinagar, Gujarat. Here we learnt and helped in managing and conserving textile collection of Dada ji in the supervision of senior textile conservator from HPA. The causes for decay in textiles can be because of : 1) Intrinsic factors, … Continue reading Learning some textile conservation
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Humidity relaxes the paper stiffness. This relaxation is important for flattening paper that is out of shape because of folds creases etc. But, there are some questions and doubts about humidifying in the right way: How to humidify without causing a shocking reaction to the paper which has been in dry environment for ages? What might happen wrong when we humidify a very large paper … Continue reading Humidification to relax stiff old documents
Copper green or verdigris was commonly used in the illustrations of the handwritten manuscripts and miniature paintings on paper. This colour has a beautiful warm effect, but tends to destroy the paper very fast, specially in humid environment. We can see in the following pictures, how the paper is almost burnt exactly in the area where verdigris was applied. Continue reading Verdigris in paintings on paper
Interns: Chetna, Subhashini, Keerat and Lovely We have been spending time learning various methods and techniques related to archival conservation in the past few days. Lab work related to archives can be very technical and precise, and requires considerable practice and hands on training. We spent most part of the day practicing the process of archival conservation which includes:- PHOTO DOCUMENTATION The procedure begins with … Continue reading Internship Experience- June/July post 4
Internship is a pathway from studentship to professionalism. This month’s archival conservation internship started around mid June. After the first day of simple discussion and brain-storming session, the new team learned the basics of archival conservation while working on the actual old maps starting from simpler procedures to more responsible ones. Students are slowly turning into professionals…. I feel so glad for them…. namita Continue reading Internship Experience – June/July 2017 post 3
25 June 2017 Today, we (Lovely, Chetna, Subhashini) began our day by practicing the surface dry cleaning of paper and photo documentation under the guidance and supervision of Namita Jaspal Mam. PHOTO DOCUMENTATION Photo documentation is done for various purposes including condition assessment, decision making for conservation plan and assessing the success of the conservation treatment, to name a few. It is a very important … Continue reading Internship Experience – June post 2
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When we talk about wall paintings or mural paintings, most of us call them ‘frescoes’. This might not be technically correct for all the murals.Technically, if the painting is created ( or we can say that the colours are applied) on a lime plaster which is still wet, the painting is called fresco (Italian word which means ‘fresh’). While painting a fresco, no binder is … Continue reading Frescoes vs Tempera
Interns: Keerat, Chetna, Lovely, Subhashini and Manit 24 JUNE 2017 We are a group of youngsters (Chetna, Subhashini and Lovely) pursuing Masters in Conservation and Archaeology .We have come to beautiful cool city of Chandigarh to gain practical experience in Paper/Archival Conservation. We will be working on blueprints for next few days. Keerat and Manit (other two interns) had already prepared the condition assessment and … Continue reading Internship Experience – June post 1
Interns: Keerat, Chetna, Lovely, Subhanshi and Manit 24 JUNE 2017 We are a group of youngsters (Chetna, Subhashini and Lovely) pursuing Masters in Conservation and Archaeology .We have come to beautiful city of Chandigarh to gain practical experience in Paper/Archival Conservation. We will be working on blueprints for next few days. Keerat and Manit (other two interns) had already prepared the condition assessment and done … Continue reading Internship Experience
June 2017These days we are working on a few blue-prints and blue-lines in our lab. Before starting the work, we tried to discuss the material and technique used in making them. This write-up is the summary of our discussion on the topic. Both these processes (blue prints and blue lines/white prints) use different light sensitive chemicals for re-producing or copying the original drawings made on … Continue reading Blue-prints and White-prints or blue-lines
Anoxic treatment system isolates the objects to be preserved into anoxic (without oxygen or oxygen deprived) micro environments, protects them from insects, aerobic biological threats and dust. Over the past decade many museums have increased their use of inert gases to eliminate insects from infested objects. The reasons are clear, practical experience has shown that conventional fumigants can have adverse effects on various materials, and some fumigants or their … Continue reading Anoxia for Museum collections
Namita Jaspal Heritage Preservation Atelier, Chandigarh, India namitajaspal72@gmail.com; heritage.atelier@gmail.com http://www.heritagepreservationatelier.com Introduction When we are trusted upon the responsibility of doing art conservation services for an active religious site, we tend to get a mixed feeling of gratitude and anxiousness. Gratitude is generally because of the ingrained faith we might have for the sacred site and anxiousness because of the huge level of responsibility that is … Continue reading Art conservation of Sri Harmandar Saheb Ji (The Golden Temple), Amritsar, India
We started our discussion regarding old photographs (https://heritagepreservationatelier.com/2017/05/20/historic-photographs/https://heritagepreservationatelier.com/2017/05/20/historic-photographs/) with an example of a silver albumin print. In this blog, we’ll see some other examples from the same collection,but all different techniques of photo-prints. 2014 and 2015 were a bit busy years and hence i could not record all the work that we did. We did try to record more casual briefings about the work we … Continue reading Old Photographs
Photography has been a great invention around first half of nineteenth century. It created possibilities of experimentation for the creative minds interested in making real images on paper. Following is a picture of a badly restored and mounted photograph created by one of the older techniques. We tried to analyze the technique by which it might have been created. For confirmed identification of the photographic … Continue reading Historic Photographs
We had already completed damage mapping at Sri Darbar Saheb Ji, in the months of October and November 2013, but gilding started playing peek-a-boo once test patches of cleaning were started later in November and December. There were many places where gilding was uncovered not just beneath the thick grime layers, but also under thick ocher paint layer. Continue reading Gild playing peek-a-boo
Conservation and personal scene at Sri Harmandar Saheb Ji (My personal dairy of professional and personal scenario in December of 2013) December 2013 was strange, i had committed to start actual on-site work at Sri Harmandar Saheb Ji and at home my father-in-law suffered second paralytic attack (he could not survive it after 27th December), son’s board exams and i was flying from Amritsar to … Continue reading December 2013
Discussions a day before site visit and practical experience, Continue reading Moments from brain-storming session during Fresco Conservation Workshop
Working on Hukumnamas (2015) Continue reading Instructions of Gurus
Since the paintings were created by Bhai Atma Singh directly over the paintings done earlier by Bhai Gyan Singh, the grip or binding to the ground (earlier painting was serving like ground layer) was minimal and there was huge amount of flaking. The paintings of Bhai Atma Singh were in turn over painted by different people in an attempt to arrest or hide the flaking! … Continue reading Extent of damage in wall paintings (Darbar Saheb Ji)
Initially it took some three to five trips to Sri Amritsar, all by myself as a conservation expert and with managers of Sri Harmandar Sheb Ji to understand the extent of damage to the wall paintings and gold plates. Following pictures were taken by me during these earlier trips somewhere in the mid of 2013. Though i was very confident and enthusiastic about this holy … Continue reading Wall paintings(at Sri Harmandar Saheb Ji), as we found them before starting our work
Golden Temple or Sri Harmandar Saheb Ji is a sacred site visited by thousands of people every day, but not many go to the first floor. Even among those who go to first floor, not many take the parikrama at the first floor. Following picture is an incomplete model of the first floor parikrama. The walls that are white in this model are actually all … Continue reading Walls of the first floor at Sri Harmandar Saheb Ji
(Just that this piece of ceramic is unique and historically important.) Small jobs like cleaning are actually meditative and provide, much needed peace, focus and purpose. Conservation lab tends to glamorize the small jobs too, with a pinch of specific knowledge and the confidence of the practical application of the knowledge of the material and whatever easy to complex technique… A simple replacement of the … Continue reading Conservation lab loves to elaborate even an extremely simple job of fixing a broken ceramic
(Just that this piece of ceramic is unique and historically important.) Small jobs like cleaning are actually meditative and provide, much needed peace, focus and purpose. Conservation lab tends to glamorize the small jobs too, with a pinch of specific knowledge and the confidence of the practical application of the knowledge of the material and whatever easy to complex technique… A simple replacement of the … Continue reading Conservation lab loves to elaborate even an extremely simple job of fixing a broken ceramic
…continued from the previous post A Case study of an oil on canvas painting It was important to remove the old varnish from this painting because, it was very thickly applied almost every other year of its lifetime and had darkened to an extent that the actual colors of the painting were not visible. For the first two days after initial assessment about the solubility … Continue reading Solvent gel cleaning, consolidation and in-painting
A painting that came to our lab some five springs back makes a very good study for the students who have just started learning the practice of conservation. It was a portrait of great-grandfather of Maharaja of Kapurthala. Ignorance of the staff responsible for the upkeep of the palace had led to multiple problems. Not just the flaking paint layer, it had portions of edges … Continue reading A Case study of an oil on canvas painting
The April 2017 workshop was on Preventive and Curative conservation practices in museums and archives. It was a very enriching experience for both the participants and the organizers. This workshop was organized by the joint efforts of State Museum and Heritage Preservation Atelier. Since the museum is facing a lot of problems mainly because of the biological deteriorating agents, main focus of the presentations was … Continue reading Workshop April 2017
This is an attempt to share the research work we did some two decades back on paper and microbes infecting paper. Following pictures are just glimpses of the complete research work. A shorter version of the research work (four pages) was published later around 2001, which is also shared here. Continue reading Research work on paper and microbes infecting paper
A beautiful piece of silver gilded artifact depicting a war scene came to our lab in 2007. It was previously wrongly restored by applying a thick layer of silver acrylic colour to hide the faults. Our first step was to remove the silver paint layer. This took a lot of time and efforts. Once the silver paint was apparently removed, it was required to study … Continue reading Case study of a silver gilded artifact
Cleaning seems a simple process and i have seen people in charge of historically important collections doing disastrous actions leading to irreversible damage of important art or history objects. It might apparently be a simple cleaning job, but it is the most important step that needs to be understood in all possible analytical and scientific ways before actually doing it. This is so, because, it … Continue reading One of the cleaning treatments of an oil on canvas painting: step by step approach
Conservation of archival material is a specialized field of work. We need to understand the structure and chemistry of paper, ink, binders, adhesives etc. This video is actually making a tough job seem quite easy. Whenever we need to separate two surfaces/layers, we need to understand many things about those two surfaces. One of the very basic and most important is that according to the … Continue reading Conservation of Archival Material
Namita “Sometimes professions are created and offered to you as a gift!” I never planned to be a conservator (of cultural property). I was just a curious kid who wanted to know about life, how living bodies work, how the whole world works?! I had very good artistic skills too. Was doing B.Sc and just wanted to do research in biotechnology or genetics someday. But, … Continue reading Beginning of a story writing job
The treatment process we are showing in this video was recorded in 2013, but because of a very tight schedule over the last few years i could not upload it. I just found this old video while searching for some pictures of a different project. Hope you enjoy the video and i am sure there must be many questions and even criticism. I’ll be glad … Continue reading Treatment of an oil painting on canvas
Learning is fun at Heritage Preservation Atelier. It was free of cost too this time, with a two day site trip, cool stay at a beautiful British period guest house. Physical chemistry and inorganic chemistry met history and architecture in the discussions and brain storming sessions on-site as well as in the cozy class room. Save Save Continue reading Fresco Conservation Workshop
