OT: Restoration gone horribly wrong

[Damfino59]

This is OT but for the interest in botched phonographs we sometimes have, it is not the decorator with the antiquing kit doing all of the damage. Sometime it can be so called "professional's".

http://io9.com/king-tuts-burial-mask-ha ... 1681085211

[Valecnik]

I just heard about this. Apparently there's still some disagreement about whether the botched repair is irreversible and what chemicals were used, (acc to BBC). Let's hope that the worst scenario is not true in the end.

[De Soto Frank]

Well, that's a damned shame...


I am all too familiar with executive types who "want it done NOW", but won't allow time or money to do it right, then when there is outcry do an about face and blame the worker bees.

[VintageTechnologies]

In a news update, the so-called conservators have been identified.

[need4art]

After 45 years in the art restoration field I can tell you that errors really do happen. Most of the time-as stated before-its often a matter of time and money-more often time. No matter what I tell a client about a time frame on a project and no matter what they say about understanding they will more often than not start contacting me long before the time frame is even up. Yes I often run behind-sometimes life gets in the way, sometime the project is not going as smoothly as I hoped, sometimes its kicking me in the butt and I just don't want to work on it, sometimes you need to let a prior repair stabilize before you move to the next step. But I always finish a project and even if its gone wrong, because I do nothing that is not reversible, I have always been able to fix whatever took place. But the client is not always happy with the time it took even if they were blown away with the results.

Sometime when you go to a museum look for a tag in a display case where an item would normally be sitting look at it and you might see "Out for restoration" and a date. I have seen tags that show a date 7 years prior to my visit.

Art and object restoration is not an exact science, and good museums have incredible equipment to work with, but many countries that are undeveloped or developing, even though they may some amazing items often do not have the equipment, personal, or money to set up a proper program. I have been helping the National College of Art in Lahore Pakistan to set up a conservation and restoration program and after 2 years all I can say is that it is moving very slowly.

The Bean movie clip on the same page as the article is a keeper!!!!

[Mr Grumpy]

We all know that I'm incredibly immature, and that's probably why I giggled (okay,laughed) when I
read that story. I know it's serious, but it reminded me of the Elias Garcia Martinez fresco restoration
in Spain. I can't help but picture the three panicked restorers deciding the best thing to do would be to
use Epoxy, and would loved to have been there to see how that decision was reached.

I still laugh when I picture the elderly parishioner thinking this was good work.

[De Soto Frank]

At least they didn't use drywall-screws...

[EarlH]

A good friend of mine does really nice player piano work and he is really weird about glues, and I totally understand why. Back when he was showing me how to go through a player piano of mine he said one day as the glue pot (hide glue) was heating up, "MAKE SURE YOU ALWAYS USE HIDE GLUE WHEN YOU CAN. It's reversible and you might be the one that has to be reversing it!" Elmer's type glues have almost no place in a player piano, or really in a phonograph either. I have no idea about what you would use on poor King Tut, but those guys usually use adhesives that are reversible as well. They had to have known better, makes a person wonder what other stupid things have gone on there. This one caught up with them......

[jboger]

I had an acquaintance do reverse glass painting for two of my clocks. He is a professional. I let him know that he can have my clocks as long as he wants. And yes there are impatient clients who want the job done quickly. But I don't think that applies here.

I recently bought an 18th C mirror in need of conservation. It was not a major project, no real challenges. But I studied it for a week before I did anything. And because I was working with hide glue I did a dry run first with all my clamps. All that for a $55 purchase. I know that, if in the process of working on something and I run into a problem. I don't act on any brilliant ideas that just come to me. Those are a recipe for disaster. I back off and come back to the problem later after I thought it through and decided on a course of action.

What happened in the Cairo Museum is beyond belief. I believe that museum has the resources--both financial and in terms of expertise--such that this should never have happened. I can not believe that those who epoxied the beard back on had any training in conservation whatsoever, the first rule of which is, whatever you do should be reversible. Nothing had been thought through. All the worse if they were professional conservators.

[Player-Tone]

The picture shown in the news article was taken before this incident happened- this is what it looks like right now:

King Tut.jpg (23.89 KiB) Viewed 2456 times

What a mess!