Methodology of a glass latern conservation and restoration painted by cold technique

Abstract

The subject of our research and restoration comes from a collection of the Ostankino Estate. This lantern is a part of decoration of the Etruscan living room of the Fountain House in St. Petersburg belonged to a count Sheremetev. The condition of safety of a lantern was disappointing, it was broken into several large and many medium and very small fragments. It consisted of 100 fragments. Many pieces were lost. On all surface of glass and a painting layer we could observe the strong pollution. The color layer was badly destroyed, the surface of the fragments was very dirty there was a widespread peeling of the paint scales, the painting was constantly crumbling at every touch. From the point of view of conservation and restoration operations it is interesting to know the old manufacturing technology of the lantern, namely technique of painting. Therefore at first we took samples of a paint layer and gave them on the analysis to our physical and chemical laboratory. The research was conducted by the following methods: microscopy in the reflected light, microchemistry, X-ray Fourier microspectroscopy. After that the technique of consolidation, cleaning and filling the gaps of a paint layer was developed. The joining process was initiated with the selection of fragments belonging to each other. Gluing started with the tiny fragments, until you get several large pieces of the lantern, let's call them blocks. Small loss on the already glued small blocks was then filled in place with an adhesive composition. The next stage was making of silicone molds of lost fragments. Large missing fragments were made using Araldite 2020. After reconstruction the whole form of the lantern, was completed tinting all the small losses, chips and adhesive joints by the developed technique. And the last step was the installation of pre-treated bronze frame.