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Transcript of e-Conservation Magazine • 15
e-conservationthe online magazine No. 15, July 2010
Cont
empo
rary
Art
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Back to Basics?
e-conservation
"The technologies which have had the most profound effects
on human life are usually simple."
Freeman Dyson
In the 70’s my father acquired some electronic tools that I now own and still use. Their simplicity always fascinated me as after some 40 years they still work perfectly, aside some natural wear out, of course. I doubt that the tools made today will pass the test of time as those of my father did.
Over the years several high-tech devices were developed that helped to move forward the know-ledge we have of art materials, either helping us to take conservation decisions or just for the sake of research and knowledge. In that same way, much of our education in art conservation focuses on 21st century technologies that can be used in the analysis of materials or for diagnosis, such as spectroscopy techniques, 3D, and, more recently, even nanotechnology.
However, once the young professional starts his career in the private sector it is unlikely he will use most of these high-tech tools only at the reach of big budget institutions. And we should not forget that the most recently developed high-tech products are also those experiencing the fastest obsolescence. Conservators are (or should be) trained with problem-based methodolo-gies which means they should know how to resolve an intricate conservation issue, although their training should also include the development of new tools when needed, often low-tech ones, to help resolve those same problems.
I would like to point out that using low-tech conservators could often achieve the same level of in-formation that high-tech could provide. Not everyone can use Raman spectroscopy on a daily basis for pigment identification, for example. But there are several new technologies available at affordable cost that can be employed quite easily. For example, a digital camera, some filters and an open access software can generate high-end imaging data, allowing the identification of materials, etc., without the hassle of high-tech analytical tools.
Low technology solutions are everywhere. Need to know if a certain metal is iron? You can always use a magnet. Their only requirement is creativity. They are often of high fiability, inexpensive, off-the-shelf, and although they are fairly simple by definition they should not be confused with DIY (Do-It-Yourself) philosophy. Although DIY is characterised by the use of low-tech solutions, it always has a strong amateur character which is undesirable in our field.
We, conservator-restorers, are said not to need creativity in the course of our work. However, creativity and ingenuity are the two most powerful tools that we should use in problem-solving. After all, it is in the making of these low-tech tools that we can show our highest creativity.
Perhaps the everyday presence of too much technology around us has made us lose track of what the simplest technologies can still achieve. Perhaps before embracing 21st century products we should go back to basics and re-evaluate what has already been achieved.
Rui Bordalo
Editor-in-Chief
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NEWS & VIEWS 6
ARTICLES
67
CASE STUDY
46
Conserve or Destroy?
By Daniel Cull
REVIEWS
VII Symposium of Art and Science
Research in Conservation of Paintings from the North of Portugal
June 11-12, 2010, Porto, Portugal
Review by Rita Veiga and Stefan Alves
NEWS
Virtual Reintegration of Renaissance Mural Paintings
The Gates of Brasov
By Silvia Demeter-Lowe
UPCOMING EVENTS
August-September 2010
Preventive Conservation, a Deliberate Choice
By Jaap van der Burg
Risk Management and Care of Collections in the Balkans
Interview with Asterios Apostolidis
Identification of Natural Dyes in Historical Coptic Textiles
from the National Archaeological Museum of Spain
By Estrella Sanz Rodríguez, Angela Arteaga Rodríguez, María Antonia García
Rodríguez, Marián del Egido and Carmen Cámara
Laser Cleaning in Art Conservation
Part I: Laser Fundamentals
By Rui Bordalo
The New Discoveries of the Restoration and Archaeology in the
Church of King St. Stefan in Žilina, Slovakia
By Jozef Dorica
Forgotten Heritage
The 18th Century Wooden Church from Ursi Village, Romania
By Anca Nicolaescu
EVENTS
9
54
INDEX
27
20
32
13
INTERVIEW
5
HERITAGE IN DANGER
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PERSPECTIVES 22
16
new
s &
vie
ws
CONSERVE OR DESTROY?
The art world is no stranger to the con-
cept of destruction. Works of art are
unfortunately destroyed by accidents,
by deliberate vandalism, and sometimes
by strange phenomena such as Stend-
hal Syndrome “a rare condition in which
often perfectly sane individuals momen-
tarily lose all reason and attack a work
of art” [3]. Works of art are also inten-
tionally destroyed by artists themselves;
the avant-garde has an iconoclastic ten-
dency in which the destruction of art and
cultural institutions (museums, libraries,
etc.) has featured heavily. Famously
Gustav Metzger coined the term ‘auto-
destructive art’ to describe art which
destroys itself within 20 years but his
own nylon canvases over which he threw
acid lasted significantly less time. More
recent examples of auto-destructive art
include performance installation works
such as ‘Breakdown’ by Michael Landy
in which he shredded everything he
owned so that “after two weeks nothing
but powder remained” [4], or the sculp-
ture ‘Always Becoming’ by Nora Naranjo-
Morse, in which the concept is re-spun
so that the aim of the artworks is to
“adapt to a continually changing cultur-
al, political, and environmental land-
scape” [5]. As we can see there is a long
established legacy of creative destruc-
"Conservation is not merely an act of stewardship that privileges the past over the present;
it is a creative destruction of alternative futures." (Erica Avrami) [1]
“The passion for destruction is a creative passion too!”(Mikhail Bakunin)[2]
By Daniel Cull
tion in art, however, “while the legacy of destruc-
tion art may be guaranteed, the museum's role
in the presentation and interpretation of this art,
is not” [6], issues of collecting, exhibiting, and
preserving such art are complex and approaches
vary significantly, being guided mostly by the in-
stitution, the artists intent, and the individual
work of art itself.
As conservators we have begun to formulate ap-
proaches to the ‘conservation’ of works of art
that auto-destruct, however, the question remains
whether we have come to grips with the destruc-
tive potential of conservation itself. Working as
a conservator there is no avoiding the simple fact
that no matter how well cared for an object may
be, eventually it will degrade to the point of de-
struction. This simple fact establishes the clas-
sical conservation discourse of an epic struggle
to prevent the inevitable, and the utopic idea of
e-conservation
Michael Landy, Breakdown, 2001.Photo by Julian Stallabrass, Some rights reserved.
a system that will one day arrest decay. Contem-
porary conservation has developed a more com-
plex and nuanced relationship with the concept
of destruction than simply its prevention. Perhaps
most explicitly in the debates surrounding the
principle of reversibility [7], in which the term
‘change’ developed as a synonym for destruction.
The resulting acceptance that all conservation
treatments cause change to the material elements
of objects has led conservators to accept that re-
versibility is at best a “fuzzy concept” [8]. This
was expanded to incorporate metaphysical ele-
ments of objects too. It is slowly being accepted
that conservation treatments have the potential
to destroy not only physical but metaphysical ele-
ments and associations of objects, in fact such
realizations lead directly to questions of whether
retaining material culture in collections could it-
self be considered emotionally and culturally de-
structive. Most simply any object undergoing con-
servation could perhaps be considered to have
been permanently destroyed in its essence as it
existed prior to the conservation intervention.
Alternatively, we could view the process as similar
to have undergoing a life-changing metamorphosis.
Either way, we can view the resulting object as
being new and uniquely different.
In theorizing the conservation process as a cre-
ation of new objects conservation praxis can po-
tentially align itself with the growing trend in muse-
ology towards embracing individual and collective
agency, "an activist museum practice, intended
to construct and elicit support amongst audiences
(and other constituencies) for alternative, progres-
sive, ways of thinking" [9]. If the discourse in de-
struction so far has focused on negative connota-
tions it is in the act of conservation that we can
begin to locate the positive potential of destruc-
tion. If the conservation process facilitates future
uses of objects, in taking a particular course of
action the potential for one set of uses are ele-
vated, as conversely another are destroyed. This
potential is shaped not only by the physical act
of intervention, but also by the process itself.
Moreover, it is increasingly clear that as conser-
vators we do not simply act upon the physical man-
ifestations of material culture, but our actions
also play out within surrounding metaphysical
landscapes as well. Contemporary conservators
therefore make treatment decisions based on the
views of an expanded range of experts, it is pos-
sible that the growing participatory nature of
museums will expand the range of voices further,
following the trend towards the melding of audi-
ence and authoritative voice, which although in
its infancy has already proven to be both a popu-
lar and worthwhile approach [10].
It is clear that conservation choices are subjective;
albeit based on particular scientific, artistic, and
craft knowledge, as well as experience and past
VIEWS
e-conservation 7
'Always Becoming', sculpture by Nora Naranjo-Morse, Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, Washington DC. Photo by Daniel Cull, Some rights reserved.
VIEWS
8 e-conservation
DANIEL CULLConservatorThe Musical Instrument Museum
Daniel Cull is a Conservator, Wikipedian, Social Networker, and Blogger from the West Country of the
British Isles. Trained at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, where he received a
BSc in Archaeology, MA in Principles of Conservation, and an MSc in Conservation for Archaeology
and Museums. He was later awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship at the National Museum of the
American Indian/Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. He currently works as an ethnographic
musical instrument conservator at the Musical Instrument Museum, in Arizona.
Website: http://dancull.wordpress.com
Contact: [email protected]
precedent. It is in this understanding of the sub-
jective nature of our profession that we can begin
to take ownership of our collective and individual
agency, and the necessity for far greater explora-
tion of both the positive and negative implications
of such destructive power; perhaps in so doing we
can be inspired by, and bring new meaning to, the
oft-mis/quoted scripture "I am become death, the
destroyer of worlds" [11].
Notes
[1] E. Avrami, “Heritage, Values, and Sustainability”,
in A. Richmond and A. Bracker (eds), Conservation:
Principles, Dilemmas, and Uncomfortable Truths,
Butterworth-Heinemann, London, 2010, pp. 183
[2] M. Bakunin, “The Reaction in Germany: From the
Notebooks of a Frenchman”, originally signed as
“Jules Elysard”, in S. Dolgoff (ed. and tr.), Bakunin
on Anarchy, Black Rose Books, 1996
[3] H. Samuel, "Woman attacks Mona Lisa", The Tele-
graph, 11 August 2009, URL
[4] M. Landy, Breakdown, URL
[5] N. Noranjo-Morse, Always Becoming, URL (blog),
URL (site)
[6] J. D. Powell, Preserving the unpreservable: A study
of destruction art in the contemporary museum,
MA Museum Studies Thesis, University of Leicester,
2007, pp. 59, URL
[7] A. Oddy and S. Carroll (eds), "Reversibility - Does
it Exist?", British Museum Occasional Paper 135,
British Museum, London, 1999
[8] S. Muñoz-Viñas, Contemporary Theory of Conser-
vation, Butterworth-Heinemann, London, 2005
[9] R. Sandell and J. Dodd, “Activist Practice”, in R.
Sandell, J. Dodd and R. Garland-Thomson (eds),
Re-presenting Disability: Activism and Agency in
the Museum, Routledge, London, 2010, pp. 3
[10] N. Simon, The Participatory Museum, Museum 2.0,
Santa Cruz, 2010
[11] ‘The Bhagavad Gita’, Verse 32, Chapter 11, URL,
famously quoted by J. Robert Oppenheimer, sci-
entific director of the Manhattan Project, in ref-
erence to the Trinity Test of the first atomic bomb
Review by Rita Veiga and Stefan Alves
The VII Symposium of Arts and Science (VII Jorna-
das de Arte e Ciência) was held at the Portuguese
Catholic University, in Oporto, on the 11th and 12th
of June 2010. It was organized by the Department
of Art - Conservation and Restoration and included
the presence of 13 researchers. This event has been
organized since 2003.
This time the Symposium focused on the research
in Painting Conservation. The oral presentations
addressed works from the sixteenth to the twen-
tieth century, illustrating technical and material
features. Most works were developed in the scope
of a research project in progress at the Research
Center for Science and Technology in Art (CITAR)
entitled "Materials and Techniques of Painters
from the North of Portugal”.
For the first time, several companies and associ-
ations could present their material during the
coffee breaks: Agar-Agar, the Iberian Heritage
Institute (Instituto Ibérico do Património), the
Association of Restorers Without Borders (Asso-
ciação Restauradores Sem-Fronteiras), the Digital
Interface for 20th Century Portuguese Art (Inter-
face Digital de Arte Portuguesa do século XX), the
Spanish Group for Conservation of International
Institute for Conservation (Grupo Español de Con-
servación - IIC), the Professional Association of
Conservator-Restorers of Portugal (Associação
Profissional de Conservadores-Restauradores de
Portugal). The digital magazine of CITAR “ECR - Con-
servation and Restoration Studies” (Estudos de
Conservação e Restauro) was also presented to
the public.
June 11 -12, 2010
Porto, Portugal
Organiser:
Universidade Católica Portuguesa (UCP)
http://www.artes.ucp.pt/jornadasarteciencia/
VII SYMPOSIUM OF ART AND SCIENCE
REVIEWS
Research in Conservation of Paintings from the North of Portugal
e-conservation 9
An exhibition consisting of radiographs of paint-
ings that were shown during the Symposium was
also organized.
The Symposium was opened by the director of the
Department of Art - Conservation and Restora-
tion of the School of Arts, Gonçalo de Vasconcelos
e Sousa.
The first presentation was carried out by Ana Calvo,
coordinator of UCP Bachelor, Masters and PhD
programs in conservation and restoration. Her
presentation focused on the need of complement-
ing the information on the materials and tech-
niques used in paintings with different historical
sources, such as artistic treaties and working con-
tracts. On this occasion, a review of the main trea-
ties that have been published was provided.
Ana Brito presented seven paintings of Abel Salazar
(1889-1946) on rigid supports, such as wood and
plywood. The use of the wood textures, the im-
portance of the drawing, the absence of a ground
layer and the use of impastos together with trans-
parent colors were some of the characteristics
identified.
Maria Aguiar showed some portraits and self-por-
traits on canvas from the nineteenth century artist
Aurélia de Sousa. The presentation focused upon
some pieces from a larger group that is being stud-
ied and that belong to private collections, to the
Museum of the School of Fine Arts of Oporto and
to the National Museum Soares dos Reis. Through
non-invasive laboratorial techniques, such as in-
frared photography, energy dispersive X-ray spec-
trometry (EDXRF) and radiography, it was possible
to identify the materials and to characterize the
techniques used. The artist technique was contex-
tualized in the turning over that took place in the
nineteenth century in what concerns the use of
traditional and modern materials.
Ending the morning session, Sónia Barros pre-
sented her work about the use of white pigments
in Portuguese paintings from the nineteenth cen-
tury and made a comparison between the theory
stated in historical references and the actual prac-
tice implemented by artists. She crossed documen-
tary sources and elemental analysis by EDXRF un-
dertaken on 21 paintings from the collections of
the National Museum Soares dos Reis and the City
Hall (Câmara Municipal do Porto), dated from 1828
to 1891. She also related external trade in the
second half of the nineteenth century with the
introduction of white pigments found in each work.
In the afternoon session, Gonçalo de Vasconcelos
e Sousa presented "The romantic portraits in
Oporto". He focused on the most important Ro-
mantic portrait painters who worked in the city,
showing some of their major pieces. In his presen-
tation, the contribution of important families and
of some institutions for the development of this
kind of painting was also shown. The speaker ad-
dressed the evolution of representation during the
three phases of Romanticism and the sociological
dimension that these paintings have achieved.
Rita Veiga presented a study of three oil paintings
on tinplate (iron recovered with tin), by Francisco
10 e-conservation
Prof. Ana Calvo (UCP) during her presentation "Contribution of technical and material studies to the conservation of painting".
REVIEWS
José Resende (1825-1893). A brief background on
the study of paintings on metal was given, which
were more traditionally made of copper alloys.
The materials and techniques used in those three
paintings on tinplate were identified and possible
reasons for their conservation condition were
pointed out, relating them to certain material
aspects.
Carla Tavares presented four paintings on canvas
by Pedro Alexandrino de Carvalho (1730-1810),
property of the Church of Bom Jesus do Monte, in
Braga. Two of the paintings belong to the collateral
altar of the transept, and two oval paintings were
situated in the walls of the main chapel. The altar
canvases are now separated from their original
location but they were originally crated and fixed
in their respective niches. Carla Tavares presented
the results of the technical research, including the
characteristics of the canvas, ground and paint
layers as well as considerations on their conser-
vation condition.
Rita Rodrigues focused upon the study of the ceil-
ing paintings from the church of the Old Salvador
Convent, in Braga. This work consists of a set of
40 panel paintings affixed to the ceiling. For this
study only two were selected. The lecturer addressed
the contextualization of this type of paintings,
methods of affixing them to the ceilings and the
research results of the materials and techniques
of the paintings.
Invited speaker Professor Vítor Serrão presented
his research on a recently discovered painting by
António Leitão that belongs to a church in Freixo
de Espada à Cinta. The painting depicts a Pente-
cost and brings together more than 40 figures.
It’s probably the oldest Portuguese work with the
representation of Japanese figures. Other topics
of this presentation included the painter’s back-
ground, who studied in Lisbon, Rome and Antwerp,
e-conservation 11
and some remarks on other known paintings by
the same author, such as "Visitação", belonging
to a chapel in Cepões (Lamego), and the old al-
tarpiece of the Church of Vila Nova de Foz Côa.
The last communication was carried out by Gonçalo
Vasconcelos e Sousa and Vítor Serrão to present
the book "Studies in History of Paintings and En-
gravings”, by Carlos da Silva Lopes (1904-1978).
This book was edited by the Portuguese Catholic
University, similarly to what has happened to other
studies by Carlos Silva, in the field of ceramics,
jewelry and furniture. The book is a series of 34
chronics, originally published between 1963 and
1969 in the newspaper “O Primeiro de Janeiro ".
As Vítor Serrão noticed, the importance of these
writings is related mainly with the fact that they
were written at a time when little importance was
given to other painters than "great masters".
Starting the second day of the symposium, Dalila
Rodrigues proposed a model to understand the
artistic systems that frame and support fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries paintings. The art histori-
an explained the correlations between the differ-
ent dimensions of painting, sculpture and archi-
tecture. Each one of these artistic media legitimizes
their presence for aesthetic reasons but also for
the functional aspect that each one can provide
to the art system. Altarpieces, sculptures and
paintings are combined to form a certain icono-
logy and symbolism. They cannot be disconnected
from the aesthetical functionalism by which they
mold their observation. Visualizing thus presup-
poses another correlation: the one that is estab-
lished between the artistic media and the spectator.
Joana Salgueiro presented the technical study of
the five panels paintings made by Vasco Fernandes
for the main altarpiece of Lamego’s cathedral
(1506-1511). The research focused upon the
wooden supports, exploring the techniques in-
volved in their construction. The speaker crossed
REVIEWS
12 e-conservation
REVIEWS
documentary references with the radiographies
made for these panels. The researcher not only
traced an historical profile of previous restora-
tions, but also explained the pathologies identified
in the wooden supports. It was shown by graph-
ical means the dimensional subtraction undertaken
and the conjecture of the original dimensions and
full extensions of each composition.
Carla Ferreira presented the problematic of the
authorship of the “Triptych of Pentecost” from São
Pedro de Miragaia church. The researcher focused
the stylistic and material issues of this piece in
the discussion of its geographical provenance.
Starting with the presentation of analytical data
obtained through several laboratory techniques,
the researcher presented some conclusions about
the origin of the central panel and both wings. By
comparing this piece with other Flemish paintings,
especially those from the school of Tornai, Ant-
werp and Brugges, the researcher explained the
main influences that were stated in this triptych,
as well as the presence of several features, such as
decorative, architectural and figurative details.
Sandra Saraiva (UCP), on behalf of Jorgelina Car-
ballo, ended the VII Symposium of Arts and Sci-
ence with a presentation on the importance of
energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDXRF) for
Ending debate. From left to right: Carla Ferreira, Joana Salgueiro, Dalila Rodrigues and Ana Calvo.
the study of painting materials and techniques.
The researcher showed some specific character-
istics of the equipment used in the project “Ma-
terials and Techniques of Painters from the North
of Portugal”, since results may diverge with the
use of different equipments. Through some case
studies, the advantages and limitations of this
technique were identified. Despite the great
amount of information that is provided, EDXRF
always requires the comparison of the results to
other analytical techniques.
The symposium ended with a debate by Ana Calvo,
Carla Ferreira, Joana Salgueiro and Dalila Rodrigues
that focused mainly on aspects related with the
conservation of panel paintings and the necessity
to proceed with this kind of researches.
ANA RITA VEIGAConservator-restorer
Contact: [email protected]
Ana Rita Veiga has a Bachelor Degree in Conser-
vation-Restoration and a Master Degree in Con-
servation of Paintings, both in the Portuguese
Catholic University.
STEFAN ALVESMaster's Student
Contact: [email protected]
Stefan Alves has a Bachelor Degree in Conser-
vation-Restoration and currently is attending
the Master Degree in Conservation of Sculpture
and Gilded Wood, both in the Portuguese Catholic
University.
Currently, they are researchers on the Project
“Materials and Techniques of Painters from the
North of Portugal”, in Research Center for Science
and Technology in Art (CITAR).
13e-conservation
NEWS
In the 16th century Hans Ritter, a student of Lucas
Cranach the Elder, executed the mural paintings
in the Broemserhof manor, Ruedesheim, which
houses today a museum of mechanical instruments.
The renaissance murals were painted in the secco-
style and depict some biblical scenes next to a
great variety of genealogical motifs.
The conservation of the murals has started in
2007 under the direction of Prof. Dr. Nicole Riedl
from the University for Applied Sciences and Art
in Hildesheim (HAWK). The team integrated stu-
dents and alumni from the Cologne University for
Applied Sciences and from HAWK.
The mural has a tumultuous history, including
heavy damage during the Second World War.
However, there is a precise water colour copy of
the intact mural paintings made by the 19th cen-
tury artist Mogens Francesco Hendrik Ballin.
This copy has inspired Michaela Janke, a student
at the Cologne University for Applied Sciences’
conservation and restoration institute, to come
up with an idea to restore the damaged murals.
The idea consisted of projecting a digital picture
based on the water colour painting onto the miss-
ing parts of the mural. The project came into reality
with the support of the private software and hard-
ware companies coolux GmbH and Burmester Event
und Medientechnik.
Although this has already been tried, the novelty
of this project resides in the manipulation of the
image file. If a conventional slide projection would
Belmira Maduro(IMC) during her presentation about the conservation of Custódia de Belém.
VIRTUAL REINTEGRATION OF RENAISSANCE MURAL PAINTINGS A new way of reintegrating lost parts of mural paintings experimented by German conservators
A damaged area of the murals in the Broemserhof manor. The projection of a grid pattern onto the area for recognition.
have been used it would have resulted into a dis-
torted image due to the curvature of the arches
where the image is projected. To overcome this
problem, a special software normally used in
opera performances and rock concerts was used.
The method consists in the projection of a grid
pattern onto the target area which is then re-
cognised by a software that allows the picture
to be easily adjusted. The area to be projected is
about one and a half square meters. The image
formed has a good quality and integrates well into
the mural ensemble, remaining chromatically
recognisable and non-intrusive at the same time.
This new approach allowed Michaela Janke to pre-
pare her forthcoming dissertation on the subject.
A short movie about the project can be seen at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WbzDSArOMA
14 e-conservation
REVIEWS
Credits
Virtual Restoration Project Leader/Idea: Michaela Janke Contact: [email protected]
Financing: Hessian Department for the Protection of Historical Monuments, LfDH
Supervisors: Professor Adrian Heritage and Professor Dr. Elisabeth Jaegers, University for Applied Sciences, Cologne. Christine Kenner, LfDHProf. Dr. Nicole Riedl, HAWK
Installation/Sponsoring: coolux GmbH and Burmester Event-und Medientechnik
Conservation Project Leader: Prof. Dr. Nicole Riedl, HAWK
Supervision of the restoration works: Christine Kenner, LfDH
Projection of the image on the mural surface.
The News section is publishing diverse
information on cultural heritage topics, such
as on-site conservation projects reports,
conferences, lectures, talks or workshops
reviews, but also course reviews and any other
kind of appropriate announcements. If you are
involved in interesting projects and you want
to share your experience with everybody else,
please send us your news or announcements.
For more details, such as deadlines and
publication guidelines, please visit
www.e-conservationline.com
FREE
CONSERVATION
RESOURCES
Art Conservation Research
conservationresearch.blogspot.com
NEWS
15e-conservation
By Silvia Demeter-Lowe
The gate of 22 Baritiu Street, Brasov, has just
been dismantled and a temporary gate has been
installed in its place until the completion of the
repair and conservation works. On the 16th of
April 2010, the gate of 7 Britiu Street has been
re-installed. After years and years since being
dumped and forgotten in one of the cellars of
the property, it has been brought back to light
and restored.
THE GATES OF BRASOV
NEWS
A Pro Patrimonio Foundation Project
Below: Gate of 7 Baritiu Street before and after the works completed.
16 e-conservation
Partners: The Directorate for Culture and Cultural Heritage, Brasov
The Evanghelical Church CA, Brasov
“Each place on Earth has a story of its own. One
needs a good ear in order to hear it and a little
bit of love in order to understand it.”
Nicolae Iorga
Above: 22 Baritiu Street before conservation.
These initiatives are part of a project initiated by
the Pro Patrimonio Foundation. Under the name
of "The Gates of Brasov", the project aims to raise
awareness about the importance of the preserva-
tion of architectural elements. The Foundation is
supporting the owners of traditional buildings
from the historical areas of Brasov who wish to
repair and conserve the gates of their properties.
The support consists in financial help and profes-
sional assistance. The works are undertaken by
craftsmen specialised in conservation of timber
and metal elements, employing only traditional
materials and techniques.
The project begun in 2009 when a Brasovian citizen
contacted the Pro Patrimonio Foundation asking
for help to save the gate of his property. An im-
pressive, old timber gate, with beautiful carved
walnut wood decorations, was supposed to be re-
placed with a modern metal one. Unfortunately,
in a "throw-away" society, replacement rather
than repair is the preferred option. But the story
of this gate was not to end there. Pro Patrimonio
Foundation, though the generosity of their High-
nesses Princess Marina Sturdza and Prince Serban
Cantacuzino, together with the Foundation’s ar-
chitect Mrs. Silvia Demeter-Lowe and Mr. Arpad
Jakab from Frizart joinery firm, managed not only
to prolong the life span of this gate but also to
restore its former beauty.
This first initiative brought the attention on the
necessity of supporting the owners of historic
properties in their efforts of maintaining and re-
pairing their buildings. As a consequence, other
organisations joined in and a partnership has
been created with the Directorate for Culture and
Cultural Heritage-Brasov and the Evanghelical
Church CA - Brasov. Therefore, other nine gates
have been selected as potential candidates for the
continuation of the project. The main criteria for
the final selection were: architectural and historic
value, location and, foremost, the desire of involve-
ment of its owners.
The costs of the repair works and professional
assistance are covered almost entirely by the Pro
Patrimonio Foundation and partners. Only 3% to
5% of the repair costs are covered by the owners.
NEWS
16 Brancoveanu Street, before and after the works completed.
e-conservation 17
Above: Selected gates (from left to right): - 2 Poarta Schei; - 8 Piata Sfatului;- 18 Brancoveanu Street;- 8 Paul Richter Street;- 3 Vasile Saftu Street;- 46 Castelului Street;- 23 Cerbului Street;-15 Republicii Street.
SILVIA DEMETER-LOWEArchitect, Project Coordinator
Contact: [email protected]
Silvia Demeter-Lowe is architect and consultant
for Pro Patrimonio Foundation, an organisation
dealing with conservation of vernacular architec-
ture. She is also the director of Context Architec-
“Gates of Brasov” inauguration, with the partici-
pation of leading architect Serban Cantacuzino, one of the founders of Pro Patrimonio Foundation.
18
NEWS
e-conservation
ture Ltd. Her work experience includes project
management, sustainable new built and architec-
tural conservation projects. She is the represent-
ative of the Romanian Order of Architects to the
Architects’ Council of Europe - Environment and
Sustainable Architecture Work Group. Over the
years she has coordinated various projects on the
conservation of monuments from Romania.
Are you reading this?So is everybody else...
e-conservationline
For advertisingand other information on publicity,
please contact
and request a copy of our mediakit.
even
tsThe events in this section are linked to the
original homepage of the organisers or to the
calendar of events at www.conservationevents.com.
Click on "Read more..." to find out more details
about each event.
4th International Architectural Paint Research Conference
'Sharing Information'
Date: 3-6 August Read more...
Place: Lincoln, UK
This conference will focus on current issues fa-
cing the profession and examines the relation-
ship between Architectural Paint Researchers
and those commissioning the research exercise.
It will bring together international members
of the architectural paint research community
and provide a platform for the interchange of
knowledge and to explore the future directions
of this significant aspect of buildings and arte-
fact conservation.
Reusing the Industrial Past
Date: 10-15 August Read more...
Place: Tempere, Finland
The primary theme of the first joint conference
of ICOHTEC – TICCIH is 'Reusing the Industrial Past'
and it is intended to be a broad idea covering
various approaches. Clearly, the industrial past
is reused whenever old industrial installations
are reno-vated or adapted. There have been many
attempts to preserve the most significant as-
pects of old industrial areas after productive
activity has ceased, by giving them a new viable
function. However, the idea of reusing the in-
dustrial past need not stop there.
Sept
embe
r 201
0
Museums and the Market
14th European Conference on Digital Libraries
Date: 6-10 September Read more...
Place: Glasgow, UK
The European Conference on Research and Advanced
Technology for Digital Libraries (ECDL) is the leading
European scientific forum on digital libraries and asso-
ciated technical, practical, and social issues, bringing
together researchers, developers, content providers and
users in the field. The ECDL Conference Series started
in 1997 in conjunction with the activities of the first
DELOS Working Group.
Date: 10-11 September Read more...
Place: Leeds, UK
This event focuses on the intersections, the formal and
informal spaces where the market and the museum meet
and overlap. The papers reflect a wide range of interests
and perspectives and bring together leading academics,
museum professionals in order to further discussion and
debate around this increasingly significant subject. The
conference will be of interest to all those who are interested
in the history of the museum and its role in society.
e-conservation
Augu
st 2
010
SEM and microanalysis in the study of historical technology, materials and conservation
Date: 9-10 September Read more...
Place: London, UK
The Department of Conservation and Scientific Research
is hosting a conference on the application of scanning
electron microscopy and microanalysis (SEM-EDX) to the
study of materials, manufacturing methods and deteri-
oration processes of objects from ancient through to
contemporary cultures.
11th Symposium on Virtual reality Archaeology and Cultural Heritage
Conservation and the Eastern Mediterranean
Date: 20-24 September Read more...
Place: Istanbul, Turkey
The Congress will focus on the conservation of moveable
and immovable heritage in or from the Eastern Mediter-
ranean. This will include material held in collections
around the world, the care and conservation of works
of art, artifacts and sites, and the preservation of archi-
tecture, all reflecting the influences that have made this
region one of the world’s richest centres of heritage.
Date: 21-24 September Read more...
Place: Paris, France
The goal of this VAST will be to build on the open dialogue
between these different areas of expertise, and in par-
ticular allow ICT experts to have a better understanding
of the critical requirements of the CH scientists for man-
aging and delivering cultural information. The result of
this interaction will be disseminated through use of in-
novative digital techniques in research and education
for Cultural Heritage and through publications.
Museums and the Market
Date: 24-25 Septembe Read more...
Place: Austin, Texas, USA
The symposium aims to bring together an international
group of graduate students who are involved in the re-
search and practice of protecting cultural heritage. In
order to prevent the loss of material and intangible cul-
ture due to both human and natural causes, EPOCH will
engage a new generation of scholars in the practices and
methodologies necessary to preserve our cultural legacies
for today and the future.
7th International Conference on Preservation of Digital Objects
Preserving the Past, Protecting the FutureCollecting and Conserving Fine and Decorative Arts
Date: 14-16 September Read more...
Place: High Wycombe (Buckinghamshire), UK
The conference will bring experts from the industry and
academia together with enthusiasts of the collection and
conservation of the fine and decorative arts. It will focus
on new and evolving ideas in the conservation and resto-
ration of private and public collections, examining issues
in furniture, painting and ceramics, and exploring the
contrast between traditional techniques and the most
recent breakthroughs in conservation and restoration.
Date: 19-24 September Read more...
Place: Vienna, Austria
iPRES2010 will be the 7th in the series of annual inter-
national conferences that bring together researchers
and practitioners from around the world to explore the
latest trends, innovations, and practices in preserving
our digital heritage. iPRES2010 will re-emphasise that
preserving our scientific and cultural digital heritage
requires integration of activities and research across in-
stitutional and disciplinary boundaries to adequately
address the challenges in digital preservation.
Sept
embe
r 201
0EVENTS
Sept
embe
r 201
0
21
Glass and Light Colloquium 130 Years Rothkegel
Date: 18 September Read more...
Place: Würzburg, Germany
This conference is organised in the context of the cele-
bration of the company's 130th anniversary and it in-
cludes a series of ten expert presentations from confirmed
specialists on topics such as glass conservation, construc-
tion physics, glass design and lighting architecture.
e-conservation
pers
pect
ives
By stating that preventive conservation
is a deliberate choice I do not intend to
say that not opting for it is a choice. Pre-
ventive conservation aspects will always
be around whether we are aware of them
or not. Whether we like it or not, preven-
tive conservation is always an issue, but
one often overlooked. I am talking about
a choice, because resources such as time
and money can be spent only once. The
decision to free up funds for a beautiful
design, for example, is indirectly a choice
not to spend these resources for the for-
gotten issue of preventive conservation.
As we all know, before a choice can be
made the advantages and disadvantages
of all alternatives should be considered
and set against each other. However, we
oftenmake our choices based on routine
and 'gut' feeling. Whenever preventive
conservation is a factor, the choices have
to be deliberate.
As an illustration of the non-conscious
way we all treat preventive conservation
we can consider the following example.
In March 2010 a foundation focused on
safeguarding and distributing know-
ledge of preventive conservation was
established in The Netherlands. Before
the founders decided that this founda-
tion was useful the ground was “tested”.
PREVENTIVE CONSERVATION, A DELIBERATE CHOICEBy Jaap van der Burg
A wide variety of organizations, institutes and in-
dividuals were asked how they felt about an or-
ganization focused on preventive conservation.
The reaction was twofold. There was a clear and
solid support for the initiative but sometimes
questions were raised by its necessity. After all,
The Netherlands already has three educational
organizations working on conservation. This
should be enough.
To see where preventive conservation is featured
in these schools their programs were consulted.
While some programs do not even mention pre-
ventive conservation at all others only reserve a
very limited amount of time and ECTS for it. To
make matters worse all other preventive conser-
vation courses in The Netherlands given by gov-
ernmental institutions are discontinued.
The only course focused on preventive conserva-
tion is one for ‘behoudsmedewerkers’ (conserva-
tion assistants/technicians). This program is fo-
cused on working with objects and collections
and obviously tackles many preventive conserva-
tion topics. However, it lasts only 1 year with 30
contact days and it is only accessible to people
with existing employment in our industry. With
these limitations it cannot be anything but a
short introduction to preventive conservation.
The conclusion has to be that preventive conser-
vation is not a major topic in education.
Of course everybody in these schools is doing their
utmost to deliver the best education they can.
e-conservation
However, they are tied to their own history and to
financial and educational structures. The actual
needs, developments and new insights in the field
itself are seldom leading.
One example is the importance still given to chem-
istry. Ever and always since the first conservation
course was established chemistry was included
and therefore we still have it on our programs. But
we should know by now that most impacts on ob-
jects have a physical nature, but physics is rarely
(if ever) a feature in these programs.
I do realize that it is very difficult to change run-
ning courses and programs. Due to all organiza-
tional and financial restrictions and established
routines the tendency to ‘stick with what we have’
is strong. What I want to do now is to think ‘out-
side the box’. So forget the existing structures etc.,
just focus on the needs first.
We are all working in the beautiful field of cultural
heritage and in particular we are trying to main-
tain it. The best way to achieve this is to prevent
something potentially damaging from happening
to it. Prevention beats every cure. A synonym for
maintaining is conserving.
Looking at these words and phrases I cannot do
anything but state that ‘preventive conservation’
is at the core of our business.
But then, what is preventive conservation? It is
a nice slogan, but what does it mean? Preventive
conservation is described by the European Com-
mittee for Standardization (CEN) as the “indirect
measures and actions aimed at avoiding and mini-
mizing future deterioration, damage and loss of
value”1.
So let us look at the agents causing damage, de-
terioration and loss.
The ‘nine causes for deterioration’2 are a well estab-
lished and accepted framework for risk assessment.
1. Physical forces (shock, vibration, gravity,
handling, etc.);
2. Vandals and displacers (people who do not re-
place objects where they should be placed making
it difficult to find (use) them in the future);
3. Fire (as with flames);
4. Water (in its absolute form as drops, leakage,
flooding);
5. Biological damage (by insects, rodents, fungi);
6. Contaminants as environmental influences,
such as dust and gases;
7. Radiation (referring to light and x-ray);
8. Incorrect temperature;
9. Incorrect relative humidity.
Even though the last two aspects are most discussed
and looked at we still do not really understand
their impact very well. We can measure temperature
and relative humidity in air and we can reason that
this has an impact on an object. But we still know
very little about the speed of response, intensity
of deformation and fluid transport within an object.
We tend to focus on the measurement of the air
where we want to keep objects.
An example of the discrepancy between what we
know and can control, and what is happening to
objects in our charge, is a new very high-techno-
logy designed showcase, especially made for very
RH sensitive material. It is air tight and has a
standalone humidifier as well as a standalone de-
humidifier. As long as both machines indicated
an RH of 53% everything was supposedly going
1 prEN 15898, CEN, Milan Jan. 2010
2 R. Waller, “Conservation risk assessment: A strategy for managing resources for preventive conservation”, in Pre-prints of the Ottawa Congress, International Institute for Conservation, September 1994, International Institute for Conservation, London, 1994, pp. 12-16; also available on-line in “Preservation Framework Online”, Canadian Conser-vation Institute, URL.
PERSPECTIVES
e-conservation 23
well. After several weeks someone noticed that
more water was added into the humidifier than
was taken out of the dehumidifier. But because
the data of RH in the air were OK no action was
taken.
Clearly, water that is issued into an airtight con-
tainer and not taken out has to go somewhere,
probably into the object. The fact that more wa-
ter goes into a closed system than comes out of
it should ring an alarm bell.
This is exemplary for the fact that we all tend to
focus on things we can measure. By narrowing in
on the resulting data we lose the bigger picture.
The more aspects and unknowns we are confronted
with the stronger the urge will be to flee into these
false securities.
Concerning the nine causes for deterioration I
want to point out that agents 8 and 9, as well as
1, 3 and 4 are mainly physical by nature, and only
6 is (mainly) chemical.
5 more ‘categories’ could be added to these inter-
national accepted agents. They are useful as in the
first 9 there is some overlap but above all because
these causes need to be dealt with in an entirely
different way:
10. Logistics (how to get the object into the
building, out of the room, etc.);
11. The collection or the object itself;
12. The shelving, storage units, wardrobes, etc.
the collection is stored in;
13. The building itself, the “shell” around the
collection;
14. The organization working with the collection.
The latter agent is sometimes added to the first
nine under the title ‘custodial neglect’.
In the courses and workshops the Dutch company
Helicon Conservation Support has given over the
years, it is usual to start with an assignment to
get participants involved. They are asked to cate-
gorize the causes of damage they have encountered
into one of these 14 categories.
Figure 1 shows the overall results of these ques-
tionnaires.
Figure 1. Results of the questionnaire made to participants at the Helicon Conservation Support courses.
PERSPECTIVES
24 e-conservation
It is not that much of a surprise that our colleagues
in cultural heritage expect physical forces to be
the biggest cause of decay. It is an eye opener
that the organization is second, closely followed
by climate, logistic and the building.
It is good to know where causes of decay may come
from but the important is to prevent them from
damaging the works in our charge. To be able to
prevent these causes from actually ending up in
damage we need to know the sources and the ef-
fects of these influences and the sensitivity of the
objects.
The required knowledge and skills can be catego-
rized as follows:
a. Object/collection awareness, including manu
facturing, history, material, significance;
b. Physics, including about shocks, vibration,
water migration, characteristics of materials;
c. Management, including organization, finance;
d. Logistics, including means of transport, ma-
terials used, accessibility and routes to take;
e. Buildings, including structure, insulation,
weight distribution, structural integrity,
engineering;
f. Risk assessment, including statistics;
g. Environment, including macro and microclimates,
relative and absolute humidity,
h. Safety and security, including laws, rules and
regulations for objects as well as people, direct
and indirect (hazardous materials);
i. Information technology, including managing
huge amounts of data, interaction, variety of
resourses of data, accessibility of these data
now and in the future;
j. Communication, including written and verbal
presentations and ‘people skills’.
And every item picked out of this list will be influ-
enced by many others and have an impact on even
more. Everything is connected.
This list proves that preventive conservation is a
full fledged occupation. It is not something ‘looked
into while we are at it…’ or ‘taken care of in the
wee hours in between serious business’. Preventive
conservation is something to focus on, something
we deliberately chosen to do, something that
needs a proper focused education. Preventive
conservation could easily fill a full minor and
master’s program.
Going back to real life, education is expensive.
No country in Europe will ever need that many
new preventive conservation specialists every
year to make a focused dedicated program finan-
cially feasible. What can be done for something
that is need but which is too expensive for the
small niche it is aimed at?
Actually the solution is quite basic. Reduce the
expenses and broaden the market. Expenses can
be reduced by using bits and pieces already exist-
ing. For example, to do proper risk assessment
we need to be able to work with statistics. There
are plenty of courses on that. The technique of
Risk Assessment is the same for airports, football
matches and exhibitions. When we start looking
for it we will find programs galore on this topic.
Even though most of these programs will not be
given by universities they might very well have
university quality. Using existing programs is a
lot less expensive then tailor-making our own.
We will have to start thinking modular. What we
will have to provide is the translation to the spe-
cifics of our field, namely from the point of view
of the object, collection and cultural heritage.
Next to reducing our expenses we need to expand
our market. We will have to look across our nation-
al boarders and work at least on European level
on this.
All this will need coordination, planning and con-
trol. And since I am convinced this will move for-
PERSPECTIVES
e-conservation 25
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
e-conservation magazine is open to submission
of articles on a wide range of relevant topics
for the cultural heritage sector.
Next deadlines for article submission are:
for Issue 16, October 2010 – submissions
due 1st September 2010
for Issue 17, December 2010 – submissions
due 1st November 2010
Nevertheless, you can always submit your
manuscript when it is ready. Between the
receival of the manuscript until the final
publication may pass up to 3 months
according with:
- the number of the manuscripts on hold,
submitted earlier by other authors
- the release date of the upcoming issue
- the pre-allocated space in the magazine
to each section
Please check our publication guidelines
for more information.
ward to university and postgraduate degrees, I am
hoping that our universities will take this need in
consideration. But as we will also need conserva-
tion technicians and assistants specialized in pre-
ventive conservation, these universities will have
to coordinate with as many other educational pro-
grams as possible.
To be able to come up with something useful for
future professionals and our cultural heritage
everybody involved will have to start working and
thinking outside their well known and comfortable
structures. Think outside the box, involve the pro-
fessionals in the field, lure students leaving high
school, use commercial skills, knowledge and ex-
perience, allow creativity even in education.
JAAP VAN DER BURGConservator-restorer
Contact: [email protected]
Website: www.helicon-cs.com
PERSPECTIVES
26 e-conservation
Jaap van der Burg is a conservator-restorer spe-
cialised in preventive conservation with over 35
years experience. He was one of two founders of
Helicon Conservation Support B.V. in Alpen aan
den Rijn (The Netherlands), company with a focus
on problem solving in preventive conservation
for collections and individual objects, including
collections management and recovery after dis-
asters. In the last 10 years he worked on over 500
projects including designing packing, couriering,
risk assessment, storage planning, courses and
workshops, registration, building and collection
integration.
inte
rvie
w
RISK MANAGEMENT AND CARE OF COLLECTIONS
IN THE BALKANS
Interview with Asterios Apostolidis, project manager of 'Collections Care Co.'
Collections Care Co (CCco.) is a private company based in Thessaloniki, Greece, and is
committed to the preservation of cultural material via the application of collections
risk management. The interview was conducted by the team of e-conservation magazine
by email in June 2010.
e-conservationline: What are the benefits of the
risk management approach?
Asterios Apostolidis: In a few words, risk manage-
ment gives a clear insight of the existing risks to
a collection. Further, it evaluates optimum and
cost-effective ways of blocking the agents of de-
terioration that cause damage to collections, and
greatly reduces future costs allocated to conser-
vation. The risk management approach is very
important for the reason that it prevents the
agents of deterioration from occurring, rather
than responding to material damage after their
occurrence. Finally, risk management draws the
attention of the staff to the necessary alterations
into museum policies and practices and leads to
strategic thinking. These are some of the benefits,
among others.
e-cons: What is the level of risk management in
the area of the Balkans?
AA: In the Balkans there is a good quality effort
from certain professionals, in the preventive care
field, to advance the level of risk management. I
think that it will take time to establish a decent
level of risk management approach for the pre-
servation of collections, for the reason that the
generation that would promote this idea is not
yet employed in major positions as that of a mu-
seum director. It is a hard task to alter people’s
approach to preservation management. Museum
staff feels that their institution’s status quo is
questioned. We, all the professionals involved,
have to show them clearly the long-term benefits
of this approach; and most importantly how to
motivate them to take part in the risk manage-
ment exercise.
e-cons: Is there any action from private institu-
tions, or companies, to train museum staff on risk
management?
AA: As I said, during the last few years there has
been a good quality effort taking place from cer-
tain professionals in the Balkan area (Serbia) in
order to advance and promote this method. At
this period we are preparing the ground in order
to make workshops in Greece on risk management
with the help and advice of various professionals
from Greece and abroad. We hope that we will
eventually succeed in doing so. We were honored
to participate and present our experience at the
ICOM-SEE workshop on risk management in Sofia,
Bulgaria, in June 2010. I have to say that the or-
ganizers did a really good job and we were very
pleased to see that the level of the workshop was
very advanced.
e-cons: How do you see the preventive care approach
to collections management in Greece?
AA: In my opinion, the preventive care approach
in Greece is not where it should be. This is not
because there are not professionals around, but
it has to do with the whole approach to preven-
tive care at all levels in Greece. People think that
preventive care requires state-of-the-art equip-
ment in order to create the ‘proper’ environment
for a collection. This is not true. An economical
approach, in-line with the structure of the build-
ing and its surroundings, can result equally in a
INTERVIEW
28 e-conservation
‘Collections Care Co.’ at the ICOM-SEE workshop on risk management in Sofia (Bulgaria) in June 2010.
safe environment for a collection. This is exactly
what CCco is trying to promote and it does that
by adopting the risk management approach to
collections management in Greece.
e-cons: How came ‘Collections Care Co.’ first into
existence?
AA: Our company was established in January 2009
aiming at preserving cultural material housed in
institutions or privately owned by collectors. The
initial thought started years ago when still as
students at Cardiff university, we had this idea
with Alexios Papapelekanos (now head scientist
of the company) to establish a private company
in Greece in an effort to offer preventive care
services.
e-cons: What are your services?
AA: In general, CCco. promotes the proper care and
preservation of museums’ and private collections.
We achieve that via three main services, which are:
care of collections, risk management and conser-
vation management. Apart from analyzing the en-
vironmental conditions for the display and storage
of collections, we also undertake the installation
of appropriate equipment to create the required
conditions. Our policy is to solve a problem with
the minimum cost.
e-cons: Finally, how do you see ‘CCco.’ in the
future?
AA: What is important for us is to advance pre-
ventive conservation in Greece and abroad. If we
succeed to bring in more professionals in the con-
servation field to promote the idea of preventive
care, that would be a great step. On a personal
level, and I think this also applies to my business
partners, I would like one day to look back and
see that we contributed into the establishment
of a good level of collections care in Greece and
abroad.
29e-conservation
RISK MANAGEMENT AND CARE OF COLLECTIONS IN THE BALKANS
e-conservation magazine offers the possibility to publish bilingual articles in the html version. Articles inEnglish may also be published in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Romanian, at authors request.
arti
cles
AREAS OF PUBLISHING
Conservation TreatmentMural Painting
Painting
Stone
Sculpture
Textiles
Paper / Documents
Photography
Metals
Tile / Ceramic / Glass
Furniture
Music instruments
Ethnographic assets
Archeological objects
Conservation ScienceScientific research
Material studies and characterisation
Analytical techniques
Technology development
Biodeterioration
State-of-the-art
Reviews
Preventive ConservationTheoretic principles
Case studies
Documentation in ConservationStandardisation
Documentation methods
Data management
Conservation TheoryEthics
Conservation History
Art History, Iconography,
Iconology, Chemistry, Physics,
Biology, Photography, Cultural
Management, Museology,
Computer Science, Legislation
and Juridical Processes,
Conservation Policies
and any other field applied to
Conservation and Restoration
of works of art.
Find out more: www.e-conservationline.com
e-conservation
IDENTIFICATION OF NATURAL DYESIN HISTORICAL COPTIC TEXTILES
from the National Archaeological Museum of Spain
by Estrella Sanz Rodríguez, Angela Arteaga Rodríguez, María Antonia García Rodríguez, Marián del Egido and Carmen Cámara
Introduction
The identification of natural dyes present in his-
torical textiles can contribute to answer different
questions linked with the how, when and where
a textile was made [1]. Moreover, this analysis can
evidence past restoration processes and provides
key information for the application of an appro-
priate treatment in current interventions of res-
toration or conservation.
In all parts of the world, natural dyes have been
used since the most ancient times until the end
of 19th century when they were replaced by syn-
thetic dyes. The ancient dyestuffs were organic
materials obtained from plants, insects, shellfish
and lichens [2]. The classification of dyestuffs can
be based on their application method (direct, vat
and mordant dyes), according to their origin (nat-
ural or synthetic, animal or vegetal), their colour
(red, yellow, blue and purple dyes) and in relation
with the chemical constitution (chromophore
structure) of the dyestuff molecule. The different
chemical classes of chromophores present in nat-
ural dyes yield the following general classification:
anthraquinoid, flavonoid, indigoid dyes and tan-
nins. There are other chromophores existing, which
are not included in this classification because they
are less common [3-5]. This classification is use-
ful for the analyst in order to choose the right
sample extraction procedure to recover the com-
ponents from natural dyes [6]. The extraction step
is crucial, within the whole analytical method,
because identification of dyestuffs will be done
upon the extracted components. The standard
procedure for extracting natural dyes from tex-
tiles involved heating in 6M methanolic hydro-
chloric acid solution. This extraction method was
introduced three decades ago [7, 8] and actually
is still being applied as evidenced in recent works
[1, 9-11]. The process has the advantage of provid-
ing a high extraction efficiency for the majority
of dyes, particularly anthraquinoid and flavon-
oid types, excepting indigoids, which are poorly
extracted because they remain practically insoluble.
Moreover, the majority of yellow dyes and some
red and orange dyes are composed of glycosides,
which, when heated in strong HCl, are hydrolyzing
glycoside linkages, causing that only the aglycone
chromophore can be detected. As a result, most
information about the original dye components
and their plant source is lost [12, 13]. Other limi-
tations of this rather aggressive process are the
degradation of several labile compounds and the
chemical transformation of different chromo-
phores [14]. Recently, several investigations have
been carried out to overcome these problems.
The most noticeable with respect to improving
the solubility of indigoids dyes have been those
including an exclusive extraction step for these
The aim of this work was the identification of natural dyes employed in the manufacture of eight fragments of the collection of Coptic textiles from the Spanish National Archaeological Museum, using HPLC-DAD. Two extraction methods, the classical methanol/hydrochloric acid extraction and a mild extraction using 5% formic acid in methanol, were evaluated using several reference fibres dyed with a selection of red, yellow, blue, purple and black dyestuffs. In both cases, an additional step, extracting with methanol/dimethylform-amide, was employed. The results showed that the number of compounds detected is higher when the mixture with 5% formic acid was used, contributing to give more information about the source of the dye, although the extraction efficiency was lower in the most cases. The latter method was selected and applied for subsequent dye extraction from the samples. The dyestuffs identified in the fragments under study are in agreement with dyestuff commonly reported for Coptic textiles.
IDENTIFICATION OF NATURAL DYES IN HISTORICAL COPTIC TEXTILES
33e-conservation
dyes using pyridine, dimethylformamide (DMF)
or dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) [15-17] solvents, in
which blue and purple dyes are more soluble, and
one proposed by Surowiec et al. [18], which is based
on HCl hydrolysis and involving an additional DMF/
Methanol (MeOH) extraction step. The introduc-
tion of this additional step offered a notable im-
provement for the recovery of indigotin. Regarding
preservation of labile compounds and glycosidic
linkages, the development of milder extraction
schemes is actually a tendency of general impor-
tance. Different approaches have been proposed
herein. More systematic studies focused exclusively
on dyed textiles were compared by Valianou et al.
in 2009 [19]. For example, Zhang and Laursen [20]
developed a mild extraction method in which HCl
was replaced by 5 % formic acid (HCOOH) in MeOH
solution, which is more efficient than the com-
mon HCl scheme when extracting anthraquinone
and flavonoid dyes from dyed silk, wool and cot-
ton fibres, further preserving glycosisdic linkages.
Although this method was successfully applied
to historical microsamples extracted from pre-
Columbian Andean [21] and Chinese textiles [22],
another study, focused on the extraction of Rubia
tinctorum L. components from wool fibres, reported
that classical HCl extraction provides the most
satisfying results [23]. In another investigation,
dyed wool was treated with aqueous solutions of
ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), oxalic
acid, oxalate, citrate and citric acid [24]. It was
reported that none of the five procedures was
better than the classical method, although the
oxalic acid extraction was comparable to HCl ex-
traction for alizarin and carminic acid. In their
study, Valianou et al. [19] compared five extrac-
tion methods, including the use of HCl, citric acid,
oxalic acid, trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) and a com-
bination of HCOOH and EDTA with respect to: (a)
number of compounds extracted, (b) relative quan-
tities of compounds extracted and (c) values for
the signal-to-noise ratio of the compounds ex-
tracted. It was shown that the TFA method pro-
vided in this sense the best overall results.
Since dyes are mixtures of organic compounds
and a fibre can be dyed employing various dyes,
those chromatographic techniques which are able
to separate very complex mixtures are the most
appropriate tools for this type of analysis. High
performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is
by far the most commonly used chromatographic
technique for analysis of natural dyes, enabling
the separation of dye components from a small
sample amount [25]. A HPLC system can be coupled
to different detectors. Because the vast majority
of dye components are strong chromophores, UV-
Vis absorbance detectors or, more usually, diode
array detectors (DAD) are commonly applied in
analysis of natural dyes in extracts from plant or
animal sources [7, 8, 26-28], from contemporary
dyed materials [29, 30] and from archaeological
textiles [9, 18-20, 31-35]. Employing DAD, the
detection can be done at any wavelength in the
UV or visible spectrum and a complete spectrum
of any substance eluting from HPLC column can be
obtained. As a result, dye molecules can be charac-
terised in terms of retention time from the HPLC
system and their UV-Vis spectrum. However, DAD
detectors have the disadvantage that they are
not very specific and similar compounds present
similar spectra. Therefore, identifying the particu-
lar components in the often complex dye mixtures
requires a more discriminating technique than UV-
Vis spectroscopy. For example, the flavonoid agly-
cones and their glycosides often show identical
UV-Vis spectra [12]. For this reason, the actual
trend goes towards the coupling of mass spectro-
metry detectors (MS) to the HPLC system, which
offers the mass spectrum of each component sep-
arated, thus allowing to characterise unknown
compounds. In fact, over the last years, most of
the research in this field tends towards uniting
and complementing all the information obtained
ESTRELLA SANZ RODRÍGUEZ et al.
34 e-conservation
by on-line coupling of these two detectors, DAD
and MS [1, 9, 13, 19, 21, 22, 36-40].
Egypt was one of the first countries where dye-
stuffs were used, and its climatic and cultural con-
ditions are favorable to conservation of archaeolo-
gical textiles. The literature about the characteri-
zation of natural dyes in Coptic textiles is relatively
extensive. For example, Wouters presented dif-
ferent studies using HPLC-DAD of extracts from
Coptic objects [7, 41, 42]. Later on, between 2003
and 2004, results about the natural dyes present
in Coptic textiles from National Museum in Warsaw
were presented employing HPLC-DAD [43], LC-
DAD-MS [44] and LC-DAD/fluorescence detection/
MS [45]. Other interesting research article was
presented by A. Verhecken [46], where the objec-
tive was to establish a correlation between the age
of a textiles from Egypt, Syria and Israel and the
dyestuff used in them. Further work was carried
out by R. Hofmann-de Keijzer et al. [47], where
the authors give an overview of dyes and dyeing
techniques used in the Late Antiquity in Egypt pre-
senting their results about an investigation of nat-
ural dyes in two Coptic textile fragments from the
Museum für Angewandte Kunst (Vienna).
The Spanish Cultural Heritage Institute (IPCE) re-
ceives numerous historical textiles from museums
and excavations for their conservation, technical
analysis and identification of their dye content.
Over the last years, the restoration of the collec-
tion of Coptic textile belonging to the National
Archeological Museum from Spain, dating from
IV AD to X-XI AD, was accomplished. This collec-
tion was studied in the framework of the project
“Technological and chronological characterization
of the Coptic textile productions: antecedents of
the high medieval Spanish textile manufactures”
[48]. Characterization of natural dyes present in
eleven of these fragments was carried out by thin
layer chromatography (TLC) in the IPCE laboratory
[49], finding the common natural dyes used in the
Nile Valley, such as madder, indigo (or woad), weld,
Figure 1. Sampling in a Coptic fragment code from the National Archaeological Museum: 15083. Photo by José Baztan.
35e-conservation
IDENTIFICATION OF NATURAL DYES IN HISTORICAL COPTIC TEXTILES
lac and probably orchil. Madder, indigo (or woad)
and weld cannot be used for dating in the first mil-
lennium, but the presence of lac dye in one tex-
tile suggests that this textile was made later than
the VII century, according to A. Verhecken [46].
The objective of the present study was the identi-
fication of natural dyes employed in the manufac-
ture of another eight fragments belonging to this
collection using HPLC-DAD. Prior to analysis, two
extraction methods for dye were evaluated, using
several reference fibres dyed with a selection of
red, yellow, blue, purple and black dyestuffs ob-
tained from a reference collection of IPCE which
contains more than 300 dyed fibres, and from a
personal collection of Ana Roquero.
Experimental
Instrumentation
The chromatographic system used consisted of a
model 600E Multisolvent delivery system (Waters
Chromatography, USA) equipped with a Luna C18(2)
HPLC column (150 x 2.1 mm id, 5 µm particle size)
and a guard cartridge system (Phenomenex, USA).
Samples were injected by a 717 auto sampler (Wa-
ters Chromatography, USA). Separated compo-
nents of dyestuffs were detected with a 996 DAD
detector, scanning from 200 nm to 600 nm at scan
rate of 1 scan/second and with a resolution of
1.2 nm (Waters Chromatography, USA). The mo-
bile phase, pumped at 0.5 ml min-1, consisted of
0.1% trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) in water (A) and
acetonitrile (B). The gradient applied was the fol-
lowing: 10% B isocratic to 1 min, to 30% B (linear)
at 30 min, to 100% B (linear) at 50 min. The column
temperature was maintained at 35 ºC.
Reagents, reference fibres and samples
High-purity deionized water (Milli-Q Element sys-
tem, Millipore, USA), trifluoroacetic acid (TFA)
from Fluka (Sigma-Aldrich, Steinheim, Germany)
and acetonitrile (ACN), both from J.T. Baker (De-
venter, Holland) were used for preparation of the
mobile phase. Gradient grade methanol (MeOH)
from J.T. Baker (Deventer, Holland), formic acid
(HCOOH, 98%) and dimethylformamide (DMF) both
from Panreac (Barcelona, España) were employed
for sample preparation.
36 e-conservation
Figure 2. Sampling in a Coptic fragment code from the National Archaeological Museum: 1976/130/12. Photo by José Baztan.
ESTRELLA SANZ RODRÍGUEZ et al.
Extraction methods were evaluated using the ten
before mentioned reference fibres, dyed with Ameri-
can cochineal (Dactylopius coccus Costa), Brazil-
wood (Caesalpinia sp), madder (Rubia tinctorum
L.), weld (Reseda luteola L.), old fustic (Chloro-
phora tinctoria), saffron (Crocus sativus L.), in-
digo (Indigofera sp.), Tyrian purple (Plicopurpura
pansa L.), alder bark (Alnus sp.) and sumac (Rhus
spp.) on wool, except the Tyrian purple reference
fibre, which was dyed on silk.
Fiber samples were obtained from different colored
Coptic textiles from the National Archaeological
Museum in Spain. Figures 1-8 show the photo-
graphs of these fragments. A total number of 29
sub-samples were taken.
Extraction procedures
Extraction methods were applied according to the
following general schemes:
Method 1: HCl extraction + MeOH/DMF extraction
Samples were placed in a conic vial and were treated
with 250 µl of a mixture of H2O : MeOH : 37%HCl
(1:1:2, v/v/v) for 10 minutes at 100 ºC. The solvent
was then evaporated under a N2 current. A volume
of 250 µl of the mixture MeOH:DMF (1:1, v/v) was
added to the dry residue and the mixture was heated
for 5 minutes at around 100 ºC. Then, the solution
was transferred to 0.2 µm nylon filters Spin-X
(micro centrifuge filter) and centrifuged at 6000
rpm for 10 minutes. The filtrate was evaporated to
dryness under a N2 current and the residue was
dissolved in 50 µl of MeOH:DMF (1:1, v/v) solution.
After shaking it in vortex for 1 minute, the extract
was injected to the HPLC-DAD system.
37e-conservation
Figures 3-5. Sampling in Coptic fragments codes from the National Archaeological Museum. From up to down: 1976/130/14; 15059 and 15076. Photos by José Baztan.
IDENTIFICATION OF NATURAL DYES IN HISTORICAL COPTIC TEXTILES
Method 2: HCOOH extraction + MeOH/DMF
extraction
Samples were placed in a conic vial and treated for
30 minutes at 45-50 ºC with 250 µl of a mixture
of MeOH:HCOOH (95:5, v/v). The solvent was then
evaporated under a N2 current. 250 µl of a solu-
tion of MeOH:DMF (1:1, v/v) were added to the dry
residue and the mixture was heated for 5 minutes
at around 100 ºC. Then, the solution was transferred
to 0.2 µm nylon filters Spin-X (micro centrifuge
filter) and centrifuged at 6000 rpm for 10 minutes.
The filtrate was evaporated to dryness under N2
and the residue was dissolved in 50 µl of MeOH:DMF
(1:1, v/v) solution. After shaking it in vortex for
1 minute, the extract was injected to the HPLC-
DAD system.
Results and discussion
Comparison between the two evaluated extraction
methods
The two extraction methods applied are based on
classical methanolic hydrochloric acid extraction,
with an additional MeOH/DMF extraction step as
proposed by Surowiec et al. [18] and on the mild
extraction proposed by Zhang and Laursen [20],
where 5% formic acid in methanol was used. Suro-
wiec et al. confirmed the greatest improvement
in extraction efficiency for indigotin when using
the additional step involving MeOH/DMF and Zhang
and Laursen observed the preservation of flavon-
oid glycosides. To the best of our knowledge, no
study has been performed comparing the method
Figures 6-8. Sampling in Coptic fragments codes from the National Archaeological Museum. From up to down: 15064; 15065 and 1976/130/11. Photos by José Baztan.
ESTRELLA SANZ RODRÍGUEZ et al.
38 e-conservation
proposed by Surowiec et al. with others, where the
acidic hydrochloric extraction has been replaced
by a mild extraction. The objective was to join the
advantages of both in one extraction method, be-
cause the sample amount available for an analysis
is always very small, therefore it is crucial to obtain
the maximum information in one analytical run.
The results obtained in this comparison are sum-
marized in Figure 9. As expected, the indigoid
dyes, indigo and Tyrian purple, were extracted in
a similar way because they are mainly affected by
the MeOH/DMF extraction, which is identical in
both methods. Four reference fibres, dyed with
brazilwood, old fustic, alder bark and particularly,
saffron, were extracted more efficiently employ-
ing the mild extraction, or Method 2. As expected,
when saffron was extracted using Method 1, no
peaks were detected because crocin and crocetin,
its principal components, are decomposed by hy-
drochloric acid to compounds non-detectable by
HPLC-DAD. Regarding the rest of reference fibres,
for those dyed with American cochineal, madder,
weld and sumac, Method 1 was able to extract
more efficiently the dyestuff. The difference for
weld was not very high (with Method 2 a 95 % of
what has been achieved with Method 1), for Ameri-
can cochineal, madder and sumac, the sum area
of detected compound employing Method 2 was
40 %, 70 % and 1.5 %, respectively, compared to
results using Method 1. This indicates that anthra-
quinone dyes and ellagic acid are poorer extracted
with formic acid. For madder, this effect was also
observed by other authors [23]. However, the
total number of compounds detected was higher
when Method 2 was employed, with the exception
of only two dyes: American cochineal and sumac.
These results were attributed to the milder con-
ditions, the ones with which the glycosidic link-
ages were preserved, and, thus, the number of
detected compounds increases. To set an example,
the number of compounds increases from four to
eight, from seven to eleven or from four to twelve
for weld, madder and alder bark respectively. If
the extraction efficiency is acceptable, the criteria
to choice the best method would be the extrac-
tion of a maximum number of compounds, which
will offer more valuable information about the
origin of the dye.
Consequently, Method 2 was selected as optimum
and applied for subsequent dye extraction from
the Coptic textile samples.
Figure 9. Comparison between the two extraction methods evaluated. Nº upon bar= nº detected compounds.
39e-conservation
IDENTIFICATION OF NATURAL DYES IN HISTORICAL COPTIC TEXTILES
Table 1. Results obtained applying the optimum extraction method for identification of dyestuffs employed in the Coptic textiles.
Application of the optimum method for dye
extraction from the Coptic textile samples
The results obtained applying the optimum extrac-
tion method to dyestuffs from the Coptic textiles
under study are summarised in Table 1.
Indigotin was identified in five blue samples, eight
green samples and five purple samples. These
results indicate that the dye employed for these
samples was in all cases indigo (Indigofera sp.) or
woad (Isatis tinctoria L.), whose main component
is indigotin, therefore the differentiation between
the two species was impossible.
Colour Samples Detected compounds Identified dyestuffs
Yellow 4, 20 luteolin-7-O-glucoside
apigenin-7-glucoside
luteolin
Flavonoid luteolin-type yellow dye,
probably weld
Blue 2, 3, 6, 8,16 indigotin
indirubin
Indigo (Indigofera sp.) or woad (Isatis
tinctoria L.)
Red and
pink
1, 14, 16B, 22,
24, 11, 13Munjistin (?)
alizarin
purpurin
Madder A
Orange 7 luteolin-7-O-glucoside
luteolin
alizarin
tannin
Flavonoid luteolin-type yellow dye,
probably weld
+ Madder A + Tannins
Brown 19 tannin
indigotin
indirubin
Tannins +
Indigo (Indigofera sp.) or woad (Isatis
tinctoria L.)
Purple 12, 15, 21, 23,
25alizarin
purpurin
indigotin
indirubin
Madder A +
Indigo (Indigofera sp.) or woad (Isatis
tinctoria L.)
Green 1 5, 17, 18 indigotin
Indirubin
luteolin-7-O-glucoside
apigenin-7-glucoside
luteolin
Indigo (Indigofera sp.) or woad (Isatis
tinctoria L.) +
Flavonoid luteolin-type yellow dye,
probably weld
Green 2 28 tannin
indigotin
Indigo (Indigofera sp.) or woad (Isatis
tinctoria L.) +
Tannins
Green 3 9, 10, 26, 27 indigotin
Indirubin
flavonoids (trace level)
Indigo (Indigofera sp.) or woad (Isatis
tinctoria L.) +
Flavonoid quercetin-type yellow dye
ESTRELLA SANZ RODRÍGUEZ et al.
40 e-conservation
41e-conservation
In red, purple, orange and salmon-pink samples,
the red dye found always contained alizarin and
purpurin as main components, indicating a mad-
der source. According to some authors [46, 47],
the two madder species most frequently employed
in the manufacture of the Coptic textiles were,
probably, the Rubia tinctorum L., whose principal
component is alizarin and Rubia peregrina L.
(wild madder), where purpurin is the main com-
ponent. In mentioned publication the term “mad-
der A” is used for dyeing which contains alizarin
as the main dyestuff and “madder P” for those
which contain mainly purpurin. In this study,
alizarin and purpurin were found to be within the
range of 60-99% and 2-12%, respectively, and the
type of madder detected was “madder A”, closer
to the composition of Rubia tinctorum L. Luteo-
lin-7-O-glucoside, as main component, luteolin
and traces of a glucoside of apigenin were detec-
ted in two yellow, three green and one orange
samples. Although there are numerous plants
which may contain these components, the most
important yellow dye originally found in the Medi-
terranean region and in West Asia was weld (Re-
seda luteola L.) which presents this composition
and is the major yellow dye found in Coptic tex-
tiles. Consequently, this dye can be identified
as weld.
Another yellow dye, though at very low concen-
tration, was detected in three green samples. This
dye had a flavonoid glycoside as main component,
probably a quercetin-type flavonoid, but yet un-
identified.
Presence of gallic and ellagic acids in the brown
sample indicate the use of tannins as dye, prob-
ably obtained from oak galls because the main
component was gallic acid. Moreover, in this
sample indigotin and indirubin were detected,
indicating the presence of indigo (Indigofera
sp.) or woad (Isatis tinctoria L.) in the mixture.
Finally, in one sample of dark green to brownish
colour, beside indigotin an unknown component
with absorption in the UV range only, presenting
one strong band at 253 nm and one shoulder at
275 nm, was detected. This absorption is possibly
due to condensed tannins, although more studies
are necessary to achieve concludent data.
Conclusions
The optimized method successfully achieves
marked objectives since it employed a single ex-
traction process. High efficiency was obtained
for the indigoid dyes while labile compounds and
glycosides were preserved. The efficiency for ex-
traction of certain compounds, like anthraqui-
nones, and especially carminic and ellagic acid
shall be improved in future investigations.
Dyestuffs identified in the fragments under study
in this work are in agreement with commonly re-
ported dyestuffs for Coptic textiles, in particular
madder, yellow flavonoid dyes, tannins and indigo
or woad. One yellow dye present in mixture to raise
green colour in three samples remains unidenti-
fied because it was present at very low concentra-
tion. Unfortunately, as the identified components
were employed all over the first millennium AD,
the gathered information does not provide clues
for a more precise dating of these fragments.
As the amount of investigated samples was rather
limited, the obtained results may be not very rep-
resentative. Nonetheless, they provide valuable
information, especially when compared with re-
sults obtained by other authors dedicated to an-
cient dying techniques applied in the Nile valley.
Besides these results, this study represents the
first milestone of an ongoing systematic charac-
terisation by HPLC-DAD of the principal compo-
nents used for dying of the textiles contained in
the IPCE´s fibre reference collection.
IDENTIFICATION OF NATURAL DYES IN HISTORICAL COPTIC TEXTILES
42 e-conservation
Acknowledgments
The authors thank the Spanish Ministry of Culture
and the Complutense University of Madrid for the
establishment of the agreement of collaboration,
in the frame of which the present study has been
developed. Ana Roquero is also gratefully acknow-
ledged for her important advice on dyed fibres
belonging to the Reference Collection of the IPCE
and for providing us reference fibres dyed with
Reseda luteola L. and Rubia tinctorum L. from her
personal collection. We would like to thank to the
staff of the Textiles Department of IPCE for their
collaboration and valuable help.
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[31] J. Wouters and N. Rosario-Chirinos, “Dye analysis of pre-Columbian Peruvian textiles with high-performance- liquid-chromatography and diode-array detector”, Journal of the American Institute of Conservation 31(2)7, 1992, pp. 237-255
[32] W. Nowik, S. Desrosiers, I. Surowiec and M. Trojanowicz, “The analysis of dye stuffs from first- to second-century textile artefacts found in the Martres de Veyre (France) excavations”, Archaeometry 47, 2005, pp. 835-848
[33] G.G. Balakina, V.G. Vasiliev, E.V. Karpova, and V.I. Mamatyuk, “HPLC and molecular spectroscopic investi- gations of the red dye obtained from an ancient Pazyrik textile”, Dyes and Pigments 71, 2006, pp. 54-60
[34] I. vanden Berghe, M. Gleba and U. Mannering, “To- wards the identification of dyestuffs in Early Iron Age Scandianavian peat bog textiles”, Journal of Archaelo- gical Science 36, 2009, pp. 1910-1921
[35] I. Degano and M. P. Colombini, “Multi-analytical techniques for the study of pre-Columbian mummies and related funerary materials”, Journal of Archaeo- logical Science 36, 2009, pp. 1783–1790
[36] M. Puchalska, K. Polec-Pawlak, I. Zadrozna, H. Hrysko and M. Jarosz, “Identification of indigoid dyes in natural organic pigments used in historical arts objects by high performance liquid chromatography coupled to electro- spray ionization mass spectrometry”, Journal of Mass Spectrometry 39, 2004, pp. 1441-1449
[37] G. C.H. Derksen, H.A.G. Niederländer and T.A. van Beek, “Analysis of anthraquinones in Rubia tinctorum by liquid chromatography coupled with diode array UV and mass spectrometric detection”, Journal of Chroma- tography A 978, 2002, pp. 119-127
[38] I. Karapanagiotis, Y. Chryssoulakis, “Investigation of Red Natural Dyes Used in Historical Objects by HPLC- DAD-MS”, Annali di Chimica 96 (1-2), 2005, pp. 75-84
[39] K. Pawlak, M. Puchalska, A. Miszczak, E. Rosloniec, M. Jarosz, “Blue natural organic dyestuffs-From textile dyeing to mural painting. Separation and characteri- zation of coloring matters present in eldberry, logwood and indigo”, Journal of Mass Spectrometry 41, 2006, pp. 613-622
[40] R. Marques, M. M. Sousa, M.C. Oliveira and M.J. Melo, “Characterization of weld (Reseda luteola L.) and spurge
IDENTIFICATION OF NATURAL DYES IN HISTORICAL COPTIC TEXTILES
43e-conservation
ESTRELLA SANZ RODRÍGUEZConservation-Scientist
Estrella Sanz Rodríguez (MSc, PhD) studied at the
Faculty of Chemistry in the Complutense University
of Madrid (UCM), graduating in 1996. After first
degree obtained in 1997 with the work “Identifi-
cation of dry oils in paint layers by gas chromato-
graphy-mass spectrometry (GC-MS)”, she worked
during three years as an analytical scientist in the
Department of Analytical Chemistry, carrying out
investigations about the identification of organic
and inorganic materials in historical samples by
high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)
coupled to ultraviolet detection, Raman spectro-
scopy and GC-MS. From 2000 until 2003 she worked
in the Spectroscopy Research Assistance Centre
of the UCM. Subsequently she carried out her PhD
in the group of trace analysis, speciation and met-
allomics (UCM), dedicated to the development of
new methods for arsenic species extraction from
environmental samples by HPLC and inductively
coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), work
which she completed in 2007. From 2006 until
present, she works as UCM investigator in the
Laboratories of the Spanish Cultural Heritage
Institute (IPCE). Her research interest include
the development a new extraction methods for
natural dyes from historical and archaeological
textiles samples and their analysis by liquid chro-
matography coupled to array and mass detector
(LC-DAD-MS).
ANGELA ARTEAGA RODRÍGUEZConservation-Scientist
Angela Arteaga Rodríguez received her CINE-5b
(1972) in Chemistry by the School of Industrial
Masters of Madrid. Since 1992 she develops her
professional work in the Area of Laboratories of
the Spanish Cultural Heritage Institute (IPCE).
flax (Daphne gnidium L.) by high-performance liquid chromatography–diode array detection–mass spectro- metry in Arraiolos historical textiles”, Journal of Chromatography A 1216, 2009, pp. 1395–1402
[41] J. Wouters, “Dye analysis in a broad perspective: a study of 3rd to 10th century Coptic textiles from Bel- gian private collections”, Dyes in History and Archae- ology 13, 1995, pp.38-45
[42] J. Wouters, “Kleurstofanalyse van Koptisch textiel (Dye analysis of Coptic textiles)”, in Koptisch Textiel (Coptic Textiles), Publicaties van het Provinciaal Ar- cheologisch museum van Zuid-Oost-Vlaanderen, site Velzeke, A. De Moor (ed.) 1993, pp. 53-64
[43] J. Orska-Gawrys, I. Surowiec, J. Kehl, H. Rejniak, K. Urbaniak-Walczak and M. Trojanowicz, “Identification of natural dyes in archeological Coptic textiles by HPLC-PDA”, Journal of Chromatography A 989, 2003, pp. 239-248
[44] B. Szostek, J. Orska-Gawrys, I. Surowiec and M. Tro- janowicz, “Investigation of natural dyes occurring in historical Coptic textiles by high performance liquid chromatography whith UV-Vis and mass spectrometric detection”, Journal of Chromatography A 1012, 2003, pp. 179-192
[45] M. Trojanowicz, J. Orska-Gawrys, I. Surowiec, B. Szostek, K. Urbaniak-Walczak, J. Kehl and M. Wróbel, “Chroma- tographic investigation of dyes extracted from coptic textiles from the National Museum in Warsaw”, Studies in Conservation 49, 2004, pp. 115-130
[46] A. Verhecken, “Relation between age and dyes of 1st millennium AD textiles found in Egypt”, in Proceedings of the 4th meeting of the study group. Textiles from the Niley Valley, 2005, Antwerp, 16-17 April, pp. 208-209
[47] R. Hofmann-de Keijzer, M.R. van Bommel and M. de Keijzer, “Coptic textiles: dyes, dyeing techniques and dyestuff analysis of two textile fragments of the MAK Viena”, in Proceedings of the 4th meeting of the study group. Textiles from the Niley Valley, 2005, Antwerp, 16-17 April 2005, 214-228
[48] L. Peinado, A. Cabrera, P. Borrego, E. Parra, C. Herrero, L. Turell, R. M. Martín Ros, A. Arteaga, Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Plan Nacional I+D+I (HUM2005- 04610), 2005-2008
[49] A. Artega, P. Borrego, M. Moreno and A. Platero, “Te- jidos del Valle del Nilo del Museo Arqueológico Nacional”, Patrimonio Cultural de España 1, 2009, pp. 279-288
ESTRELLA SANZ RODRÍGUEZ et al.
44 e-conservation
Her work consists in the analyses of natural dyes,
binding media from works of art by different tech-
niques like FTIR, TLC and HPLC-DAD. She has also
participated in several publications, congresses
and other professional meetings, both national
and international.
MARÍA ANTONIA GARCÍA RODRÍGUEZConservation-Scientist
María Antonia García Rodríguez received her MSc
(1991) in Analytical Chemistry from the Complu-
tense University of Madrid. From 1992 to 1997 she
developed her professional work in the Laboratory
of Doping Control in Madrid (The Sports Council,
CSD). In 1998 and 1999, she collaborated with the
Laboratory of Public Health of the Community of
Madrid. Between 2001 and 2005 she worked as
technical attendance in the study of instrumental
techniques applied to the Investigation and docu-
mentation on artworks in restoration process in
the IPCE, where since 2006, she belongs to the
technical staff in the Area of Laboratories. Her
work consists in studies related to mural paintings
and archaeological material, as well as the analysis
of organic materials in other art objects. She is
author of several articles that appear in various
publications.
MARIÁN DEL EGIDOConservation-Scientist
Marián del Egido received her MSc in Physics from
the Complutense University of Madrid in 2003.
From 1995 to 2000, she worked as researcher in
the National Museum of Science and Technology
(Madrid), where she participated in projects re-
lated to documentation and publication of his-
torical collections of scientific instruments and
she was attending national and international
meetings organized by the Scientific Instrument
Society and the International Union of the His-
tory and Philosophy of Science. She is author of
several publications on History of Science and
History of Scientific Instruments. Since 2000,
she is Head of the department of Scientific Con-
servation of the IPCE. During this period, she has
participated in national and international projects
related to scientific conservation of cultural her-
itage, has coordinated and directed several inter-
ventions and researches on scientific methods in
conservation and organized many courses and
seminars.
CARMEN CÁMARAChemist
Carmen Cámara is a professor in Analytical Chem-
istry at the Complutense University since 1992.
She is the leader of the Research Group of Trace
Determination and Speciation, belonging to the
department of Analytical Chemistry. Her main
research interest is focused on the development
of new analytical methods for trace metal speci-
ation, emergent contaminants, bioaccumulation
studies of trace metals and organic compounds in
zebra fish embryo, proteomics and other topics
related with a wide variety of samples. She has
coordinated more than six European and several
National projects. She has also participated in
more than 30 European projects. Carmen Cámara
has extensive experience within quality assurance,
development of validation methodologies and
the use of hyphenated techniques, among oth-
ers. She has published more than 250 papers in
international journals, was invited to held plen-
ary lectures in the most relevant international
meetings related with her activity and helds two
patents. She has also been, from 2005 to 2009,
the president of the Spanish Analytical Chemistry
Society.
IDENTIFICATION OF NATURAL DYES IN HISTORICAL COPTIC TEXTILES
45e-conservation
LASER CLEANING IN ART CONSERVATION
by Rui Bordalo
Part I: Laser Fundamentals
This article is the first of a series devoted to the application of lasers to art conservation, mainly
focused on the cleaning process, and it will cover notions from the basics of lasers to its application to
paintings and other works of art.
Introduction
The laser just turned 50 years-old. It has, since
long, been part of our daily life and it made pos-
sible many technologies that many of us couldn’t
live without, from dvd readers to telecommunica-
tions. But the laser has also been an important
development for art conservation. During the
development of laser technology the interaction
between the laser and the irradiated material
has been of the utmost interest in several fields
of knowledge. Among its many applications, in
art lasers can be used mainly for analysis, when
integrated in analytical devices such as spectro-
scopy, and for cleaning. Laser technology should
be always considered as an alternative tool to solve
specific problems, when traditional methods are
not a viable option.
Lasers in Conservation
50 years after the first laser was built there are
more than 10,000 laser wavelengths known. Laser
technology has a great potential in the develop-
ment of alternative procedures for conservation
mainly due to particular properties of the light
beam but also due to its controllable and reprodu-
cible technique. Its application in the conserva-
tion field includes a wide spectrum of uses, namely
surface cleaning, removal of overpaintings and
other layers, and analysis of art materials.
Laser has always captured much attention due to
its potential over traditional cleaning techniques,
either chemical or mechanical ones. It became the
first tool that did not interact physically with the
artwork, minimizing thus the contact with the
surface and the stresses or damages that can be
inflected during normal procedures. This minim-
um contact respects the “minimal intervention”
principle that every conservator aspires to follow.
Research in laser cleaning is focused on the de-
velopment and optimization of the controllable
removal of surface selected layers.
Although in the beginning laser technology could
have been seen by some as a new fast technique
to clean any material, soon it was obvious that the
technique required much research before being
applied to works of art. Nowadays its potential is
to complement the established traditional tech-
niques by overcoming their disadvantages and
limitations.
Although conservation is traditionally a conserva-
tive field, scientific research is very active in both
the material characterization and the development
of new technology to the cultural heritage field.
Traditional cleaning techniques employed by paint-
ing conservators are either of mechanical or chem-
ical nature. The use of solvents presents several
disadvantages such as the difficulty to control
their degree of penetration into the paint layers,
interfering thus with the chemical stability of the
original, and their toxic nature. It was attempted
to overcome the former disadvantage by the de-
velopment of gels instead of the liquid form, al-
though this technique is also not exempt from
disadvantages. An important factor is that some
Laser scanning device. Lasers can be used to scan 3D objects of any size, from coins to building facades.
LASER CLEANING IN ART CONSERVATION
47
layers to be removed are partial or completely in-
soluble to strong solvents that can endanger the
paint layer and the integrity of the painting. Mech-
anical cleaning is performed most of the times
with a scalpel, which is probably the most charac-
teristic tool used by conservators, but which pres-
ents the associated hazard of the direct physical
action over the paint layer that can damage the
surface. The choice and control of these techniques
is directly dependant on the individual skills of the
conservator, as the borderline between optimum
cleaning and over cleaning is often very thin.
Laser technology, and more particularly, laser
cleaning provides advantages such as selectivity
(it is possible to remove unwanted layers without
removing the original material with appropriate
parameters), non mechanical contact (enabling
the treatment of highly sensitive surfaces), envir-
onmental friendliness (avoiding the use of hazard-
ous chemicals or solvents), precise action and
reliability.
Historic background
Lasers are based on the principle of stimulated
emission which was first deduced by Albert Ein-
stein in 1917. This principle is simply the process
by which electromagnetic waves of a certain fre-
quency can induce (or stimulate) an excited atom
or molecule to decay from a high to a low energy
level, emitting thus more electromagnetic waves.
In the early 50’s, Columbia University researcher
Charles Townes thought that he could induce mo-
lecules to emit at certain wavelenghts. In 1954
Townes and his colleagues built the first device
based on that principle. The device was named
‘maser’, which stands for Microwave Amplification
by Stimulated Emission of Radiation and it was able
to emit at a very precise unique wavelength in the
microwave region. This breakthrough was then repro-
duced by others, originating several modifications.
In 1958, Townes and Schawlow [1] proposed that
the emission could also be done in the infrared
48 e-conservation
The electromagnetic spectrum shows a general sequence of all the possible frequencies of electromagnetic radiation,
from gamma rays to radio and long waves. Shown above is a detail of the visible region which is the one the human eye
can see. This region is approximately between 400 nm and 700 nm. Below and above those values are the ultraviolet (UV)
and the infrared (IR) regions, respectively. Most lasers used in conservation are in those regions, in wavelengths that
typically vary between 150 nm (UV) and 1100 nm (IR).
Some rights reserved, available at Wikimedia Commons.
RUI BORDALO
and visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Two years later, in 1960, the first light-emitting
maser was constructed by Maiman [2] using a flash-
pumped rod of ruby. The name of this light-emit-
ting maser was changed to Light Amplification by
Stimulated Emission of Radiation, or laser. After
that, lasers development was soon directed for
industrial applications.
In short, lasers are devices that produce and am-
plify an intense beam of highly coherent and highly
directional radiation by stimulated emission in spe-
cific frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum.
The first application of lasers to art conservation
happened in the early 70’s by a team leaded by
John Asmus [3, 4]. He was invited by geophysicist
Walter Munk to produce high-resolution holographic
records from marble sculptures for archival pur-
poses using laser technology in Venice, Italy be-
fore further degradation. For the job, the team
used a ruby holographic laser, the most powerful
in existence at the time. In 1972, and after having
produced over 50 holograms, Asmus was introduced
to the difficulties of cleaning crumbling marble
sculpture by restorer Giulia Musumeci. Asmus had
previous experience with laser ablation due to past
research on using lasers for space exploration and
came with the idea of using the laser to ablate the
black crusts from the marble with minimum dam-
age [5]. The initial holography program turned
then into a laser cleaning project of stone statues,
the first of a new area of research.
However, before starting to clean sculptures, it
was required to assess the safety of the use of
lasers for this purpose. Further research funded
by the Samuel Kress Foundation and the Smith-
sonian Institution between 1972 and 1974 found
that laser could be applied to clean countless ma-
terials used in works of art such as “marble, lime-
stone, oolite, sandstone, stucco, concrete, terra
cotta, most metals, leather, velum, paper, cotton,
wool, silk, moleskin, and wood” [5]. Ruby and Nd:
YAG lasers had limitations back then, among which
the low pulse repetition laser, low reliability, high
costs, etc., that prevent them from being extens-
ively employed [6, 7]. Although promising, there
was few research developed in the field in the 70’s
and 80’s.
Diagram showing population inversion in a typical three-level laser energy. Diagram by Bob Mellish, Some rights reserved, available at Wikimedia Commons.
49e-conservation
Laser cleaning of a metal object using a Nd:YAG laser that is portable and can be easily managed through a hand gun. Photo taken at the workshop 'Saving Sacred Relics of European Medieval Cultural Heritage', Romania, 2006.
LASER CLEANING IN ART CONSERVATION
The 80’s was still an incipient period, although
lasers were produced with increasing technological
advancements. Their use involved a very high cost
when compared with the traditional cleaning prac-
tices and their precise short- and long-term effects
on the works of art needed further research. The
fact that lasers were normally located in industrial
environments was not adequate to the cleaning
of works of art. During that period this new tech-
nology faced scepticism from the conservation
community and it was mainly thanks to the work
of Asmus and colleagues that research continued
[8, 9].
It was only in the 90’s, with the progressive devel-
opment of laser technology, that this slow paced
research field met a new interest from European
researchers. More studies begun. mainly backed
up by European Programs funding, and several re-
search groups arose [10-14]. In this period, stone-
based materials were the focus of research and
the success cases contributed to the debute of
research in other areas to start, mainly in paper,
textiles, glass, metals and paintings.
Due to the increasing interest in laser applications
to conservation, an international workshop was
organised in 1995 gathering the main researchers
of the area. The meeting was so successful that it
turned into a biannual conference with the name
LACONA (Lasers in the Conservation of Artworks),
and has become one of the most relevant inter-
national meetings in this field of research. Since
then, laser technology has continue to evolve and
is now much better known by conservators and
other professionals. Its research and use has been
consolidated by a permanent interest from several
research groups, mainly located in Europe.
50 e-conservation
Schematic representation of the laser cavity.
Detail of a manuscript during cleaning. Lasers are so precise that can be even used to erase ink from paper. The red laser dots in the image are from a secondary laser used for locating the area to be removed as the cleaning laser is not visible.
RUI BORDALO
Laser Fundamentals
Lasers are devices that can produce and amplify
coherent radiation by stimulated emission in spe-
cific frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Nowadays lasers can emit in a large range of the
electromagnetic spectrum, namely at wavelengths
from the long infrared to X-ray regions [15].
Principles of Laser Radiation
The theoretical basis of lasers was presented in
1917 by Einstein [16] when he described funda-
mental concepts of emission and absorption of
light by matter: stimulated absorption, spontaneous
emission and stimulated emission of radiation.
Spontaneous emission is the process when excited
particles transit to a stable state of lower energy
resulting in the spontaneous emission of a photon.
Stimulated emission occurs when energy of the
same frequency of the spontaneously emitted radi-
ation is incident on the material forcing the parti-
cle to undergo a level transition emitting radiation.
In this particular case, however, the photons emit-
ted by stimulated emission have the same phase,
same frequency and direction of propagation as
the incident radiation. The resulting radiation
beam is therefore considered coherent, mono-
chromatic and highly directional. It is the most
low-divergent and monochromatic light source
that is known to man.
Lasers emit radiation at several wavelengths cov-
ering a broad range of the electromagnetic spec-
trum, from the microwave to the soft X-ray region.
Each laser can only operate at a specific wave-
length, except for free electron lasers that have
the potential to operate at all wavelengths. The
most important regions for most applications
are the infrared, the visible and the ultraviolet
regions.
Basic Structure
A basic standard laser requires the same 3 basic
components: a power source, an active medium
and a resonance cavity.
The active medium must have a metastable state
in which the electrons can be trapped. After ex-
citation of the active medium by energy pumped
from the power source, the active medium particles
tend to achieve an excited metastable state with
51e-conservation
Typical laser set-up at a laboratory during research. Although not all lasers are small and portable their characteristics may be very useful for the interaction with certain materials. Testing the interaction of laser with several materials is an important step of research in order to minimize possible unwanted effects.
Example of a Nd:YAG laser. In this particular case the laser beam exit by the top and is redirected by a mirror into the target.
LASER CLEANING IN ART CONSERVATION
is unblocked, the energy is released in a single
and very high peak pulse. This technique makes
possible to produce laser beams with different
lengths (τ) depending on the switching frequency.
Lasers are complex devices and their explanation
can sometimes be hard to comprehend. However,
it is required to understand the principles by
which they function in order to understand how
they can operate and how they can be later used
for conservation purposes.
The next article of this series will continue intro-
ducing the application of lasers in conservation.
It will contain, in detail, the interaction of the
laser radiation with matter, exploring why it is
so convenient for cleaning procedures, and the
most used laser types in conservation.
a consequent inversion of the population. The in-
version of the population occurs when the majority
of the particles (atoms, ions or molecules) are in
an excited state rather than in a low-energy state.
This condition is critical as the radiation is emitted
when the particles decay from energy level.
The active medium is contained in the resonance
cavity, the main mechanism of the laser, where the
light is amplified. The cavity has two mirrors at its
extremities, opposite to each other. While one is
totally reflective, the other is partially transmitant
making possible the exit of the light beam from
the cavity.
After the spontaneous emission of light is produced
in all directions, the photons that travel in the par-
allel direction of the resonance cavity axis can start
the emission of other photons. The light amplifi-
cation is achieved by successive reflections in the
mirrors on the referred axis. When the amplifica-
tion exceeds the loss of the cavity, a coherent beam
of light is produced.
Operational Modes
Lasers operate in two fundamental modes: con-
tinuous or pulsed (either normal or Q-switched).
As self-explained, continuous mode is when trans-
mission from the resonance cavity emission is con-
tinuous in time and pulsed mode is when transmis-
sion is made intermittently. The pulsed mode can
be originated by the device set-up or it can be in-
duced mechanically by means of a switch (called
Q-switch).
Q-switching is a technique used to obtain strong
pulses. In the normal laser configuration the en-
ergy drains out of the population inversion as fast
as is pumped in. However, if the feedback of the
light to the mirrors is blocked, the energy is stored
until a certain level is reached. When the feedback
52 e-conservation
Example of the laser set-up during testing. The laser beam can be shaped by a mask and a lens before irradiating the paint sample. Previous research in several conditions is an important step before the actual cleaning of works of art.
Bibliography
[1] A.L. Schawlow, C.H. Towens, “Infrared and optical masers”, Physical Review 112, 1958, pp. 1940-1949
RUI BORDALO
53e-conservation
Rui Bordalo is a conservator-restorer specialised
in easel paintings. He has a particular interest in
the study of art materials and in the application
of new technologies to conservation. This interest
led him to pursue a PhD at the Courtauld Institute
of Art in the application of laser technology in the
cleaning of paintings.
He currently teaches several disciplines of the
conservation course at Portucalense University,
Porto. He is a board member of the Portuguese
Association of Conservator-Restorers (ARP) and a
Committee member of the European Confederation
of Conservator-Restorers' Organisations (ECCO)
since 2005. He is also one of the founders of e-
conservation magazine, where he is currently
the editor-in-chief.
[2] T.H. Maiman, “Stimulated optical radiation in ruby”, Nature 187, 1960, pp. 493
[3] J. F. Asmus, G. Guattari, L. Lazzarini, G. Musumeci, R. F. Wuerker, “Holography in the conservation of statuary”, Studies in Conser- vation 18, 1973, pp. 49-63, URL
[4] J. F. Asmus, S. G. Murphy, W. H. Munk, “Studies on the interaction of laser radiation with art artifacts”, in R.F. Weurker (ed.), Developments in laser Technology II, Proc. SPIE 41, 1973, pp. 19-30
[5] R. Bordalo, “John Asmus, from Lasers to Art Conservation”, e-conservation magazine 3, 2008, pp. 12-19, URL
[6] A. Martini, “Utilità del laser nel restauro della pietra e del marmo”, Quaderni della Soprin- tendenza ai Beni Artistici di Venezia, Venezia, 1978, pp. 151-152
[7] L. Lazzarini, La pulitura dei materiali lapidei da costruzione e da scultura, Cedam, Padova, Italy, 1981
[8] J. F. Asmus, “More light for art conservation”, IEEE Circuits and Devices Magazine, March Issue, 1986, pp. 6-14
[9] J. F. Asmus, “Lasers in conservation”, Con- servation News 34, 1987, pp. 9-10
[10] M. Cooper, Laser cleaning in conservation: an introduction, Butterworth-Heineman, Oxford, 1998
[11] A. C. Tam, W. P. Leung, W. Zapka, W. Ziemlich, "Laser cleaning techniques for removal of sur- face particulates", Journal of Applied Physics 71, 3515, 1992, doi:10.1063/1.350906
[12] S. Georgiou, V. Zafiropulos, D. Anglos, C. Balas, V. Tornari, C. Fotakis, “Excimer laser restoration of painted artworks: procedures, mechanisms and effects”, Applied Surface Science 127-129, 738, 1998, doi:10.1016/S0169-4332(97)00734-4
[13] R. Oltra, O. Yavas, F. Cruz, J. P. Boquillon, C. Sartori, “Modelling and diagnostic of pulsed laser cleaning of oxidized metallic surfaces”, Applied Surface Science 96-98, 484, 1996, doi:10.1016/0169-4332(95)00500-5
[14] C. Fotakis, “Lasers for Art’s Sake”, Optics and Photonics News 6 (5), 1995, URL
[15] M. J. Weber, Handbook of Lasers, CRC Press, 2001
[16] A. Einstein, “Zur Quantentheorie der Strahlung”, Physikalische Zeitschrift 18, 1917, pp. 121-128
RUI BORDALOConservator-restorerContact: [email protected]
LASER CLEANING IN ART CONSERVATION
case
stu
dy
THE NEW DISCOVERIES OF RESTORATION AND ARCHAEOLOGY
in the church of King St. Stefan in Žilina, Slovakia
by Jozef Dorica
National cultural heritage, the Church of King St.
Stefan is the oldest sacral building in Žilina in the
district of Dolné Rudiny in Slovakia.
The church was built in the Late - Romanesque
style likely in the first third of the 13th century.
It was created as a compact building as we know
it until today. It has an oblong nave, a square choir
and a semicircular apse. The church is located in
an enclosed area bordered with a roofed fortifi-
cation wall with an entrance gate and embrasures.
A field chapel was built after the year 1700 in the
south-eastern part of the ground. Originally the
church was surrounded by a cemetery. In 1995
foundations of the razed Chapel of the God’s Body
were discovered on the outer southern side of
the choir and apse of the church. According to
the archaeological survey it is possible to date its
creation back to the break of the 14th and 15th
centuries and its demise within the first half of
the 16th century.
The Church of King St. Stefan went through a num-
ber of changes on the interior decorations and also
through minor adjustments of architectonic de-
tails during its existence. Only in the year 1762 a
greater rebuilding was performed in the interior
of the church nave. The original flat wooden beam
(joist) ceiling was replaced with a baroque brick
vault. The small late-Romanesque windows which
were positioned in the height were bricked in and
on the wall under them they were replaced with
larger baroque ones.
In the interior of the choir and the sanctuary are
wall paintings. They are the most valuable part of
the church decoration. In the year 1949 they were
discovered by the academic painter Mojmír Vlko-
laček (28.12.1915 – 25.10.2007). As he stated in
various texts, he performed on his own the first par-
tial uncover, on the 6th of January 1950. His keen
painting restoration activity was from the year 1955
Graphic record of the openings from the fortifying beams.
THE CHURCH OF KING ST. STEFAN IN ŽILINA, SLOVAKIA
e-conservation 55
professionally guaranteed by the academic painter
Peter J. Kern (31.1.1881 – 25.3.1963), who belongs
to the first representatives of the professional res-
toration in Slovakia. The overall uncovering of the
wall paintings was done in the period between
5.10. and 16.12.1955. The final approval report
about the completion of restoration works is dated
12.12.1956. The minutes from one of the meetings
state: “The paintings were uncovered from under-
neath two layers of plaster, locally up to 8 cm thick.
Under the plasters there were paintings also covered
with a coat of lime”.
In the past a few specialised surveys were carried
out in the church. Besides their specialised assign-
ments, they always involved the architectural-
historical survey of the church. In the year 1988
the heritage survey of the whole area, based on
visual analysis, considered the possible develop-
ment of the building in two stages. The sanctuary
and the choir are considered to be the older build-
ing parts and the nave to be the newer extension.
The archaeological surveys from the external side
from the year 1995 and in the interior of the church
made in 2000 were aimed also at the survey of the
building foundations in the touch point of the choir
with the nave and discovered one building stage.
Since the discovery and restoration of the wall
paintings, the first precise restoration survey was
only executed in the year 2008. Unquestionable
finds of the survey proved the conclusions of the
archaeological survey about one stage of building
- historical development. Further, together with
the following restoration of wall paintings in the
year 2009, they brought new and revealing finds
in iconography, which significantly changed a part
of its look as it was known since the restoration in
the 50ies of the 20th century until now.
The restoration survey used all required methods
for assessment of the technical state of the wall
paintings, verification of their historical develop-
ment and definition of the extent of restoration
View of the sanctuary before restoration.
JOZEF DORICA
56 e-conservation
interventions in the past century. It was widened
by the cooperation with specialists from the field
of natural sciences. It was oriented at the survey of
the paintings in infrared reflectography, ultraviolet
luminescence, survey of the plasters on walls and
vaults with thermography and onto a large physi-
cal-chemical survey of the compound of the used
pigments. The wooden historical constructions
of the church and the finds of historical wood in
the masonry underwent a dendrochronological
survey. The ornithological - osteological survey
studied further finds which were related to the
historical existence of the church. From the art-
historical point of view the painting was the sub-
ject of a large analytic-synthetical study.
The whole survey proved that the decoration with
wall paintings in the church‘s sanctuary was real-
ised in four time varying stages. It was preserved
in different technical qualities and extents.
After the restoration in the 50ies in the conch of
the apse, considering the time of their creation, two
of the most distant paint layers were presented
at the same time. In historical order, the fourth
one – the newest painting of the four figures, likely
Hungarian saints – partially covered the first one
– the oldest paint layer, which in a linear way of
painting, pictures the basic parts of a Gothic build-
ing construction and decoration – blind arched
frieze, rustication (brickwork) and ribs with a key-
stone in the peak of the vault.
In the choir space of the vault there are three
painting layers. The oldest, first linear painting
Non-invasive survey of the paintings in ultraviolet luminescence.
View of the sanctuary after restoration.
THE CHURCH OF KING ST. STEFAN IN ŽILINA, SLOVAKIA
e-conservation 57
is related to the oldest layer in the conch of the
apse. On the sides of the vault a second layer of the
painting is covered in historical order with the fig-
ures of the 12 apostles - 8 on the northern and 4
on the southern side. In the peak of the vault the
third layer by order is the least preserved paint-
ing of Christ Pantocrator in mandorla, which is
carried by angels.
The survey found that the painting of the 4 figures
of saints in the conch was painted on multiple
layers of lime coats which already at the time of
its creation covered the oldest linear layer of Gothic
architectural parts. The figures were preserved
only fragmentally in the extent of ca. 20 – 30%.
Until now their known aspect was due to the res-
ult of the artistic reconstruction from the first
restoration.
On the keystone of the peak of the conch in the
apse we found important iconographical finds –
the painted keystone, which had the shape of
Christ solar symbol was an over painting. The ori-
ginal is the blessing Master’s Hand in the middle of
its semicircle. The “sun flames” around the key-
stone were also over paintings. Originally they were
four dog heads with the ribs coming out from their
mouths. These finds are related to the oldest lin-
ear painting. Their symbolism, and so their whole
oldest painting decoration, can be assigned to the
influence of the order of Dominicans, who were
active in Kláštor pod Znievom before the second
half of the 13th century (1243 – 1248).
Painted keystone in the peak of the conch of the apse before restoration (right) and after restoration (below).
JOZEF DORICA
58 e-conservation
One of the most important developments was the
find of the uninterrupted continuation of the old-
est linear paint layer - small rustication on the
only preserved stone cornice on the northern
corner of the nave’s arch of triumph and of the
choir of the church. At the same time it was found
that on the corners of both arches of triumph
(nave - choir, choir - sanctuary) there are frag-
ments of cut off stone cornices from the same type
of stone. According to the finds they had also iden-
tical profiles. They were different only in size. They
prove the 'one building stage' of the sanctuary,
choir and of the nave of the church.
The results of the restoration survey were the base
for processing the new method of presentation
of the paintings in the conch of the apse. With
the aim to restore the original artistic-historical
aspect of the sanctuary, the preserved extent and
quality of the original enabled us to decide in fa-
vour of the presentation of only the oldest linear
painting decoration. The process of restoration was
chosen so that fragments of the paintings of the
figures were not removed, but fixed and covered
with lime coat.
Even during the restoration works we recorded
further important finds.
During the removal of the secondary interventions
from the repairs on the figures of the apostles we
found bricked-in openings from a wooden beam
which connected opposite sides of the arch of tri-
umph on the corner of the nave and of the choir.
The openings from the beam get wider deeper in
the wall and continue into both corners of the
eastern wall of the nave. In the corners they turn
and continue in the northern and southern wall
of the nave. Originally reinforcing beams, which
probably rotted out, were placed there. Again,
the openings are a proof about the creation of the
whole church at the same time.
In the openings vomit was found from barn-owls
(Tyto alba). According to the ornithological – os-
teological survey the owls nested there for at least
20 years. That means that further in the past in a
period not yet determined on the timeline the
church was not used for a longer period.
During the final cleaning of the oldest preserved
plaster layer from the newer plasters on the north-
ern and southern part of the eastern wall of the
nave an important completely new find was dis-
covered. Two until then unknown consecration
crosses were found there. They are a further im-
portant piece of evidence of the architectural
unity of the whole church already since the be-
ginning of the 13th century. Their discovery, be-
sides the finds in the conch of the sanctuary,
brought a further new and outstandingly inter-
Find of the oldest linear rustication decoration on the northern cornice and its aspect after restoration.
THE CHURCH OF KING ST. STEFAN IN ŽILINA, SLOVAKIA
e-conservation 59
esting document about the unique iconography
of the church of King St. Stefan which was not
met yet in Slovakia. Both newly discovered 'crosses'
have no transverse arms. The northern one has
only a vertical and the southern only an horizontal
arm. In this way they disprove the existing idea
about the consecration cross in the sanctuary
regarding to the fact that it also has only one arm,
which was considered to be unfinished or damaged.
All three together, lead to the conclusion about
a possible unknown meaning content and sym-
bolism of these one armed crosses.
The find increased the number of the medieval
consecration crosses discovered until now in the
church to five. The other two consecration crosses
on the northern and southern walls of the choir
known from before are typologically different. It
is possible to assign the difference to their shape
and colour adjustment, which is newer.
In the peak of the vault choir is, according to the
timeline of the creation, the third paint layer. Ori-
ginally it portrayed Christ Pantocrator in mandorla
which is carried by angels. The scene is preserved
only in fragments. The reason of its damage was
the plaster falling off in the past. The restora-
tion in the years 1950 – 1956 only conserved its
torso.
During the restoration research in the year 2008
other small parts of the original mandorla scene
The find of the one-armed consecration cross on the southern side of the eastern wall of the nave, before and after restoration.
Christ in mandorla in the peak of the choir vault before restoration.
JOZEF DORICA
60 e-conservation
Christ in mandorla in the peak of the choir vault after the restoration.
THE CHURCH OF KING ST. STEFAN IN ŽILINA, SLOVAKIA
e-conservation 61
were found which were not involved during the earli-
er restoration. After the removal of the fillings and
proper final cleaning of all the painting remains,
it was possible to realise the shape reconstruction
of the angels. The central scene with the figure of
Christ Pantocrator is preserved only in minimal
fragments. Due to the need to reach visual and
contextual unity of the painting, which is located
in the living organism of the church, it was decided
in cooperation with the methodical advisor from
the Regional Heritage Office in Žilina to realise
its hypothetic shape and colour reconstruction.
In the row, the second historical paint layer with
the figures of the apostles on the lower parts of
the choir's vault is the art-historically most valu-
able artistic realisation in the interior of the church.
The restoration survey on the figures did not bring
any fundamental changes. It proved large extent
of damage and large losses of the original in the
past. The reconstruction of a part of draperies of
the apostles’ clothing belongs, from an artistic
point of view, to the best managed realisation of
restoration in the 50ies. That is why, after our The apostles on the northern vault of the choir after restoration.
Details of the apostles on the northern vault of the choir during restoration.
JOZEF DORICA
62 e-conservation
agreement with the methodical advisor, we de-
cided to accept this artistic part. However, the
low quality of large areas of fillings required their
replacement. We copied the reconstructed parts
of the draperies. After the replacement of the
fillings the drawing was remade.
On the northern part of the vault of the choir, dur-
ing the removal of the fillings we recorded an in-
teresting find. In the placing mortar of the vault’s
masonry we found imprints of the original wooden
moulding of the vault. They have shown that the
moulding was built from various split wooden
beams. The find cleared the reason why the sur-
face of the vault is so distinctly uneven.
Their extent was large enough to enable us again
to return the original aspect to the figures and
their draperies in a larger extent and more closely
to the restoration performed in the 50ies of the
20th century.
The art-historical analytic-synthetical study which
is a part of the research evaluates the painting
decoration of the apostles with these words: “The
wall paintings in the church of King St. Stefan in
Žilina with regards to the proposed dating of the
oldest layers (before 1250, respectively second
half of the 13th century) belong to the most valuable
evidences of medieval art preserved in Slovakia. The
drawing of such quality and from this period as it
is represented by the apostles from Žilina has no
comparison not only in Slovakia or in surrounding
countries. With their style, they represent the tran-
sitional phase between Romanesque monumental
Surface survey in direct light (right) and ranking light (below).
THE CHURCH OF KING ST. STEFAN IN ŽILINA, SLOVAKIA
e-conservation 63
Conch of the apse before restoration.
Conch of the apse after restoration.
JOZEF DORICA
64 e-conservation
painting developing forms passed on through
drawing templates and early Gothic style which
manifested on them in livelier drapery, tendency
to linear and more flowing drawing, communica-
tion among the figures and finally also with the
decorative architectonic frame of the arcades”.
An exhibition about the intervention and discov-
eries at the Church of King St. Stefan organised
by the city of Žilina, Zbor Žilincov (Žilina Patri-
ots) will take place between 4 August 2010 – 16
September 2010 at the Old Town Hall, Mariánske
námestie 1, Žilina, Slovakia.
Credits:
Partners: Považské Museum in Žilina,
Král Steffanus fine wines
Preparation of the exhibition: Acad. painter Jozef Dorica
English translation: Mgr. art. Barbara Davidson
and Stevin John Davidson
Photographs: from archive sources and from the
authors’ archive
Archaeological survey in the years 1995 and 2000
by Mgr. Jozef Moravčík
Restoration research in the year 2008:
by Acad. painter Jozef Dorica
Technical cooperation: Pavol Santa
Methodical advisor for restoration for the Regional Heritage Office in Žilina:Mgr. Emília Michalcová - Borošová
Cooperation for the restoration research: Dr. Dušan Buran, RNDr. Miroslav Hajn, Ing. Eva
Kľučková, Ing. Tomáš Kyncl, Ing. Ján Obuch
Restoration in the year 2009: Academic painter Jozef Dorica, Head restorer,
Mgr. art Július Karcoľ, Mgr. art Jana Koníková,
Mgr. art Denisa Petrlová, Mgr. art Zuzana Wei-
glová, Milan Bagin, Róbert Tibenský, technical
cooperation Juraj Dorica.
Cooperation for the Roman-Catholic church: Ing. Ladislav Štefanec, church caretaker
Specialised cooperation by the preparation of the exhibition: Mgr. Jozef Moravčík, Ing. Miroslav Pfliegel, Mgr.
Peter Štánsky
Curator of the exhibition: Academic painter Jozef Dorica
The restoration of the wall paintings was financed
from the grant system of the Ministry of Culture
of the Slovak Republic “Obnovme si svoj dom” and
by the Roman-Catholic church, parsonage Žilina-
city.
JOZEF DORICAConservator-restorer
Academic painter Jozef Dorica (1949) is a conser-
vator-restorer specialised in wall, panel and easel
paintings. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts
in Bratislava, department of Painting Restoration
under Prof. Karel Veselý. After graduation in 1975
he was active mainly as artist in fine arts. Between
1981 and 2002 he worked as restorer in the Slovak
National Museum – Museum Bojnice. In 1990 he
co-founded Restorers' Union (Obec reštaurátorov),
of the Slovak Union of Fine Arts and in 1994 he
cooperated in the establishment of the Chamber
of Restorers (Komora reštaurátorov), from which
he was the president for two mandates (2001-
2005). At present he is the head of the Restoration
commission as the advising body to the General
Director of the Heritage Office of the SR in Brati-
slava. For his work he was awarded twice the
annual prize of the Pamiatky a múzeá (Heritage
and Museums) magazine and three times with
the Fénix - cultural heritage of the year prize by
the Foundation of the Slovak Gas Industry (SPP)
and the Ministry of Culture of the SR.
THE CHURCH OF KING ST. STEFAN IN ŽILINA, SLOVAKIA
e-conservation 65
heri
tage
in d
ange
rFORGOTTEN HERITAGE The 18th Century Wooden Church from Ursi Village, Romania
By Anca Nicolaescu
with scientific input from Gheorghe Niculescu and Oana Chachula
E-conservation magazine from June 2009 (10th issue) published an article regarding the endangered
rural heritage from Romania encompassing the South and North areas of the Carpathian Mountains
chain. In that paper Ovidiu Danes described the delicate situation of the wooden churches as being
“Ignored by the village communities and deemed as minor patrimony by the governmental authorities,
just a few wooden churches were preserved in their intact initial condition in terms of architecture,
paintings, icon collections, furniture, ceremonial objects, etc. But they have actually vanished from our
own awareness.”
The project which was described at that time has
already had two years of field and archive researches
done by dedicated art historians Luiza Zamora and
Ovidiu Danes and photographers who struggled
to identify and record the wooden churches from
the mentioned areas. During those years they were
basically rediscovering many of those monuments,
which were never systematically studied except
during a partial inventory from 1960.
Throughout those field researches a vast documen-
tation has been gathered and used in a series of
exhibitions and seminars willing to draw the at-
tention of local communities and administrative
officials in charge of the national heritage pre-
servation to this grave issue in order to proceed
with their emergency conservation.
But the only result was a volunteering campaign
organized by Dala Foundation and The Architects'
Chamber of Romania (OAR) presided at that time
by Serban Sturdza, with students from the Univer-
sities of Architecture from Timisoara and Bucharest.
During the 2010 summer 30 churches were docu-
mented from the architectural point of view, being
mapped with notes regarding the conservation
ANCA NICOLAESCU
68 e-conservation
Figure 1. General view of Ursi church.
evaluation. One of them without mural paintings,
almost in ruin, was moved to a monastery ensemble.
An itinerant exhibition was organized by Dala Foun-
dation and OAR and seminars accompanied it.
Again the responsible authorities were not too
much moved or interested in this action, nor in
its continuation.
This introduction was necessary for the readers to
better understand the context of an irreparable
event that has occurred meanwhile – the partial
collapse of Ursi Church from Romania, Valcea county,
on June 13, 2010. One of the most valuable from
this group of rural monuments, an example of fine
craftsmanship of both the wooden architecture
and mural decorations done in al fresco technique,
which survived almost 300 years due to its high
technical qualities and not the maintenance it
deserved, became this summer almost a ruin.
This is the reason for the publication of the present
article, which is an updated version of the paper
“Degradations and conservation strategies for an
XVIII century wooden church from Oltenia County,
Romania” by Gheorghe Niculescu1, Oana Chachula1
and Anca Nicolaescu, presented at the 41st Annual
Meeting of the International Research Group on
Wood Protection (IRG), COST focus meeting, in May
2010 at Biarritz, France.
The article was written after a research campaign,
which took place in November 2009 involving an
interdisciplinary team of conservators, physicists
and biologists from different Romanians Institutes
like the National Research Institute for Conserva-
tion and Restoration and the National Institute
of Research and Development for Optoelectronics
(INOE). The team made an effort to go in situ in
November in order to set up as fast as possible an
emergency strategy trying to rush all the proced-
ures for an actual intervention which could have
at least protected the church until the beginning
of further complex conservation treatments. The
research also encompassed, beside the conserva-
tion assessment of the wall paintings, the analysis
of the component materials and a thorough bio-
logical attack assessment.
All those efforts, done during an unwelcoming
weather and without any financial support, were
again, in vane. The bureaucratic difficulties, the
lack of interest and therefore of founding, lead to
postpones of the emergency intervention having
as result the partially church collapse.
Therefore we are dedicating a few pages in e-con-
servation magazine to this sad example of deserted
rural heritage, which unfortunately, despite its
Figures 2 and 3. Pictures taken by the Arch. Stefan Balici after the collapse of church's ceiling, June 13, 2010.
FORGOTTEN HERITAGE
e-conservation 69
1 Researchers at the National Research Institute for Conserva-tion and Restoration, Calea Victoriei 12, Bucharest, Romania
value, has been left out of any conservation policy
by the local or national authorities. Unfortunately
this is not an isolated example, the destruction of
the rural heritage occurring constantly and in-
creasingly every year.
Historical background
The church from Ursi village, Popesti, Valcea dis-
trict (figure 1), was built in the year 1775, follow-
ing the model of timber houses. The church has
a simple rectangular plane, with apses on three
sides, and is divided into altar, narthex, exonar-
thex and open porch, in accordance with Eastern
Christian tradition. The simple and low volume
of the church was protected by the large eaves of
the shingle covered roof. The construction system
is a traditional one, the monument being erected
on a wooden base by arranging oak logs joint to-
gether in spigot at the ends. The exonarthex and
narthex interiors are semicircular vaulted, while
the altar has a quarter of calotte vault.
Mural painting
The church has been adorned, inside and outside,
with al fresco paintings of a rare artistic and icono-
graphic value, finding here some rarely represented
themes like Protecting Veil of the Mother of God
(The Mother of God with Angels Wings), painted
on the west gable of the exonarthex. This icono-
graphic scene is found in the neighbouring area
only at Govora Monastery, monument of traditional
Brâncovenesc style. Following the specificity of
XVIII century paintings, the painting of Ursi church
has a deeply human character, with picturesque
scenes included in the biblical ones (soldiers, peas-
ants working the field, chancellors wearing epoch
costumes).
The inside of the vault level has been painted in
a secco technique directly onto the wood, without
any preparation layer, the fresco being only ap-
plied on the walls as far as the beam level.
Taking into account the severe deterioration state
of the whole monument, the preservation of frag-
Figure 4. Altar before the collapse of the ceiling. Photo by Ovidiu Danes.
70 e-conservation
ANCA NICOLAESCU
ments of original painting indicate a very good
knowledge of the fresco technique by the artist.
The high professional grade of the master painter
is evident especially in adjusting the fresco tech-
nique to a wooden support. The arricio layer, meant
for levelling the wall, was eliminated, and the in-
tonaco layer is very thin, about 5 mm, sometimes
only 3 mm. The same support layer, made of lime
and tows, is observed in the logs joints, which
sometimes reaches 1 cm thickness. The thinly
applied intonaco layer could result in a deficient
pictorial layer (powdery, without coherence), but
in this case, despite the precarious state of con-
servation of the mural ensemble, the still existing
pictorial layer is in an unexpectedly good condi-
tion. The detachments of the colour layer, espe-
cially scales like ones, are visible mainly in the
areas affected by deformations or/and displace-
ments of the wooden support, so these are due to
mechanical causes and not to a technical deficiency.
Another very important technical detail, as in time
it became a degradation factor, is the wooden beam
incision in order to improve the pictorial layer
adherence to the wooden support. By a thorough
inspection of the pictorial surface it was noticed
that these incisions (initially just cuttings of wood
fibres) grew in volume, expanding under the ac-
tion of humidity, penetrating in the support layer
Figure 6 and 7 (above). Example of flaking occurred in the areas of the wooden support affected by mechanical degradation.
e-conservation 71
Figure 5. Detail of a mural fragment inside of the log joints.
Figure 8 (below). Wooden beam incisions done on the whole surface to improve the adherence of the plaster to the wooden support.
FORGOTTEN HERITAGE
detachments. So, by successive volume variations,
the free wood fibres built an internal pressure,
eventually resulting in local detachments or even
expelling of fresco fragments.
Degradation causes
The main cause of deterioration of the church has
been the improper maintenance in time. In 1850
great earthquake damage has been reported. The
year 1913 marks the beginning of its gradual neg-
lect, due to the building of a new masonry church.
This is the moment of the wooden church abandon,
which will be used only occasionally, as cemetery
church for burials or offices for the dead.
Repeated cycles of rainwater infiltrations, due
to successive and unsolved deteriorations of the
roof, led to cyclic deformations of the wooden
Figure 9. Eastern facade tilted to the north.
72 e-conservation
support (expansion and contraction of the wood).
The accumulation of infiltration humidity, com-
bined, in the lower part, with capillarity one (the
church lacks a drainage system and the vegeta-
tion grows in the vicinity of the walls), favoured
and maintained the biological attack.
The wooden structure has been attacked and de-
teriorated, losing its resistance and severely af-
fecting both the church structure (see figure 9,
the church volume is twisted, the west façade is
tilted to the south and the east one to the north)
and, inevitably, the painted decoration.
The first detachments of the fresco layer presum-
ably took place at the level of logs joints, gradually
leading to a total loss of the paint on a 4 cm sur-
face on the joints trajectory, expanding on larger
areas in certain badly affected parts. This accu-
mulation of humidity led to the biological attack.
ANCA NICOLAESCU
Figure 11. Massive losses of the painted surface on the level of log joints.
The bacteria and fungi developed on the pictorial
layer, together with the other deterioration agents,
played in time an important role in the destruc-
tion of the mural painting on a significant area.
At this moment the attack is inactive, resulting
just in some colour and structural changes on the
painted surfaces. We took biological samples and
identified species known as biodegradation agents
of the fresco, as: Aspergillus flavus, Mucor sp.,
species of Penicillium and Alternaria alternata.
Conservation state and strategy of preservation intervention
The degradation causes had an interdependent
evolution, starting with the lack of a minimal
constant maintenance of the church, which re-
sulted in immediate mechanical degradation –
the roof gradually deteriorated making way to
infiltrations in the upper part, combined, with
capillarity in the lower part, also due to negli-
gence and allowing vegetation and earth deposits
to accumulate at the base level.
e-conservation 73
Figure 10. Damages caused by water infiltrations on the iconostasis.
FORGOTTEN HERITAGE
74 e-conservation
Figure 12. Detail of the rotted wood.
ANCA NICOLAESCU
Thus, physical and chemical degradations appeared
in the wood structure as a consequence of humidity.
Eventually, the rise of humidity level in the whole
church and in their constitutive elements (wood)
led to a biologic attack. The wood weakening, more
and more severe structural deficiencies were the
natural result of the conditions in which the monu-
ment existed for some decades.
The painting degradation appeared gradually also,
especially at the ground level. From simple fissures
and cracks to lacunas and detachments, some of
them very large and severe, in form of sloping roof
or swelling, displacement or slipping of the sup-
port layer, maceration and fragmentation on large
areas. Biological attack also affected the mural
painting due to the high level of humidity main-
tained over long periods of time inside the church
as a consequence of pluvial waters penetrating
through the destroyed roof.
The selection of the preservation intervention had
to take into consideration this chain of events and
their negative effects in order to be efficient in
time.
Until now a thorough research or specific inter-
ventions to remediate the existent deteriorations
had not been carried out, with the exception of
some local interventions on the roof level (the
last replacement of the shingle was done in 1943),
followed by the covering with tar paper (also de-
teriorated since). Some interventions were done
by supporting the rafters’ ends with inclined poles
in order to transmit the efforts from the roof di-
rectly to the ground, avoiding the stress on the
walls, already badly damaged, which could led to
the collapse of all building.
e-conservation 75
Figures 13-15. Damages of the murals at the support layer caused by structural deficiencies of the architecture.
FORGOTTEN HERITAGE
Experimental Methods
Physical analysis
The pigments and support layer composition were
determined by X-ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy
(XRF), on a portable apparatus Innov-X Alpha
Series, with a wolfram anode X-rays tube, work-
ing at 40 kV and 100 mA. The detector is a Si-PIN
detector, cooled by Peltier effect. Seven samples
were taken from different locations (outside –
northern wall N, eastern wall E, exonarthex V and
exonarthex ceiling) aiming to cover all the pig-
ments used in the wall painting execution.
By X-ray fluorescence analysis the characteristic
pigments for fresco (green earth, ochre) were de-
termined, as well as some pigments from an earlier
intervention (Titan white, chromium green) (fig-
ures 17 and 18). The blue hue was obtained by mix-
ing carbon black with lime white, a technique
usually used in fresco painting. Also, the migra-
tion of soluble salts as CaSO4.2H2O was revealed.
Biological analysis
The samples from the paint layer have been seeded
in aseptic conditions on culture media: Sabouraud
medium for moulds. The incubation has been per-
formed for a time period of 7 to 14 days at 28˚C.
The identification of fungus was performed by a
stereomicroscope Nikon SMZ1000, a microscope
Nikon Eclipse LV100 and reagents (cotton blue,
Figure 16. Image with the church supported by inclined poles.
Figure 17. Vault decayed by the Macromycetes.
ANCA NICOLAESCU
76 e-conservation
ethanol, KOH). Wood decay fungi (Huckfeldt and
Schimdt 2006) and microfungi (Tanase 2002) were
identified.
Concerning the wood biodegradation the situation
is as it follows. The roof, as well as the other res-
istance structural elements (rafters, logs) are af-
fected in a proportion of 80% by the attack of the
Basidiomycete species like: Coniophora puteana,
Fibroporia vaillantii, Hyphodontia breviseta and
Serpula lacrymans. In some places the resistance
logs are completely destroyed, even collapsed.
The iconostasis and the altar doors, made of fir
wood, are also affected by the xylophage attack,
inactive at this moment. One can see big flight
holes, 4 to 5 on square centimeter.
At the same time the base and the floor are com-
pletely affected, with some parts even lacking
(figure 20). Except for the oak structures, all the
wood is attacked by xylophagous insects.
Figure 18. XRF spectrum of the green sample – Ursi church – outside, east wall.
Figure 19. XRF spectrum of the green sample – Ursi church – inside, pronartex west wall.
FORGOTTEN HERITAGE
e-conservation 77
Recommendation for an emergency intervention on the mural painting
Architectural solutions for the stabilization of the
severe structural damages should be chosen so as
to avoid risky operations for the existing pictorial
layer, such as detachment and remounting.
Beside the usual operations in cases of prophy-
lactic preservation of the pictorial layer, the plan
for the architectural rehabilitation should give
a special attention to the materials used in the
consolidation of the support layer. This is neces-
sary due to the fact that it is not advisable to use
the same consolidation materials as those em-
ployed for a mural painting on masonry. The con-
servation state of the wooden support already
damaged by biological attack is conditioning the
selection or preparation of the materials in this
situation. Thus, some criteria were established
regarding the injection material for the situation
of Ursi church, such as:
- the use of a minimum amount of water; its un-
controlled use could lead to new deterioration of
Figures 20-22. Decay of the massive timber floor and different areas of the paint layer affected by biological agents.
Figure 23. Micromycetes identified in laboratory out of the drawn samples.
ANCA NICOLAESCU
78 e-conservation
the wooden support or could worsen the existent
problems;
- the fluidity; a condition difficult to reconcile with
the above mentioned one, but necessary, as the
intonacco layer is very thin and , in most areas,
could not allow the total penetration of a consoli-
dation material with a too high content of aggregate;
- quick setting, taking into account the poor me-
chanical resistance of the support layer damaged
by the humidity.
Ursi Church has survived as much as it possibly
could. It has enjoyed when it was brought to the
attention of art historians by a traveler photo-
grapher and heritage lover, who has captured its
beautiful frescoes -- not only the interior, but also
the exterior ones, which had survived not because
they were well cared for by those whom it served
for so long, but only because they were well done.
Now it seems that only nature is still close to it and
tries to recover it as long as no one else is interested
in what it once represented. Grass is slowly covering
its socle and birds store their winter supplies be-
tween its beams. A very sad image, but apparently,
very much alive, awaiting for some solution.
ANCA NICOLAESCUConservator-restorer
Contact: [email protected]
Anca Nicolaescu (BA, MA) is a conservator spe-
cialised in mural painting. She has received her
Master degree from the National Art University
in Bucharest, Romania. Her professional experi-
ence includes coordination of various projects at
Restauro Art Grup (conservation enterprise she
co-founded) and international participations at
conservation projects in UK, Turkey, Uzbekistan,
Japan, India and Denmark. Presently she works
as freelance conservator in Paris, France.
She is a co-founder and editor of e-conservation
magazine.
OANA CHACHULABiologist
Contact: [email protected]
Oana Chachula graduated from the Faculty of Bi-
ology Al. I. Cuza, in Iasi (Romania) in 2002. She
is currently pursuing her PhD in Animal Taxonomy
field at Biology Faculty, University of Bucharest.
She has been working at the INCCR as a biologist
for 3 years, her current work responsibilities in-
cluding the biological investigation of movable
objects and historical buildings.
GHEORGHE NICULESCUConservation-scientist
Contact: [email protected]
Gheorghe Niculescu is the director of the National
Research Institute for Conservation and Restora-
tion (INCCR) and physics professor at the National
Art University in Bucharest, Romania. He has over
30 years of experience in the research of historic
monuments from Romania.
FORGOTTEN HERITAGE
e-conservation 79
Acknowledgments
Project participants involved in the saving of
Ursi Church:
• Luiza Zamora, Art Historian
• Ovidiu Danes, Art Historian, president of Dala
Foundation
• Arh. Serban Sturdza, president of The Architects'
Chamber of Romania at that time
• Serban Bonciocat, Mihaele Dumitru Tranca
and Sorin Onisor photographers
• Caroline D’Assay, president ProPatrimonio, France
• Oana Chachula, Biologist, and Gheorghe
Niculescu, physicist, director of the National
Research Insitute for Conservation and
Restoration
• Roxana Radvan National Institute of Research
and Development for Optoelectronics (INOE)
• Simona Patrascu, Mural Paintings Conservator
• Prof. Gabriel Panasiu and volunteer students,
5th year, University of Architecture, Bucharest -
Costin Octavian, Manafu Marius, Oprisan Silviu,
and Smanatana Sergiu, among others.
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e-conservationline
No. 15, July 2010
ISSN: 1646-9283
Registration Number125248
Entidade Reguladorapara a Comunicação Social
Propertye-conservationline, Teodora Poiata
PeriodicityBimonthly
CoverDetail of mural painting from the
18th century wooden church from Ursi village, Romania.Photo by Anca Nicolaescu
Executive EditorRui Bordalo
EditorsTeodora Poiata, Anca Nicolaescu
CollaboratorsAnca Dinã
Daniel Cull
Graphic Design and PhotographyAnca Poiata, Radu Matase
ExecutionTeodora Poiata
Address Rua de Santa Catarina, nº 467, 4D4480-779 Vila do Conde, Portugal
www.e-conservationline.com
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