RESTORATION OF CHINESE WOOD ENGRAVINGS FROM LITHUANIAN ART MUSEUM
Year:
Anno 2017/2018
Category:
Conservation
Eglė Virpilaitienė, Eglė Piščikaitė, Janita Petrauskienė
Lithuanian Art Museum Pranas Gudynas Restoration Center
By the late 19th century wood engravings in China were produced in big numbers and for coloring synthetic susceptible to moisture poor quality dyes were used. The woodcuts were glued to a cardboard, with wrinkles, cracks, missing fragments. The engravings were separated from the cardboards and cleaned; reinforced paper tears, restored the missing fragments, paper deformations were flattened. Affected image areas and paper losses were inpainted. The biggest restoration challenges were unsustainable, very thin paper, susceptible to moisture coloring paints and overall engravings size.
