Adopt a Work of Art: Birds and Flowers
Conservation at the Ackland
The conservation of this screen painting is the most significant singe treatment that the Ackland has undertaken. The Museum is indebted to the Ackland Guild and the Institute of Museum and Library Services for sponsoring this treatment. The required treatment was very complex, and there are few conservation professionals in the country, indeed in the world, with the necessary expertise. The Ackland was very fortunate that Sondra Castile and Takemitsu Oba of the Far Eastern Conservation Department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art accepted this project...
The Sesshu screen was purchased because of its potential to become a centerpiece of the Ackland’s collection of Asian art, but its condition was so poor that the curators chose not to exhibit it. The painting was originally a six-fold screen. In the course of time, approximately one and one-half of the six panels of the Ackland screen were lost. One guesses that through some accident, portions of the painting were irretrievably damaged. In an unfortunate attempt to make the surviving portions presentable, they were subsequently pieced together to form a single sheet, backed with Japanese paper, and attached to a plywood board – a mount that is aesthetically wrong and chemically damaging.
The decision was made to attempt to return this masterwork to a condition and presentation that would be more faithful to the artist's original intention. The composition was conceived not as a single plane, but as the surface of a folding screen. Fortunately, the largest losses were in what appears to be the “emptier” end of a traditional, asymmetrical composition. There were also many small losses at the joins of the panels and scattered throughout the painting. Many of these losses had been repaired crudely, with conspicuous in-painting. However, and most importantly, none of the original painting had been tampered with. Even in areas where the original paint was abraded, no attempt had been made to retouch, or strengthen the original brushstrokes. This fact is key to the value of this painting even in its compromised condition. The attribution to Sesshu was based on the purity, strength and variety of this brushwork. These qualities become much easier to appreciate with the removal of the distractions of stains and poor repairs.
DESCRIPTION OF THE TREATMENT
Before the painting could be removed from the plywood mount, the pigments had to be consolidated with a dilute gelatin-based binder, so that none would be lost with the use of moisture in later steps of the treatment. The binder had to be applied in small quantities, repeatedly, over a period of weeks, so that each pigment would absorb the correct amount of binder.
Following this stabilization, the painting panels, still joined together by several layers of paper backings, were separated from the plywood mount. The painting was then laid face down, moistened, and the various backings removed from the reverse of the painting. The sections were then separated from each other. Conspicuous repairs were removed. Stains were reduced where possible. Small patches of the painting that had been misaligned were re-positioned. Tears were drawn together and losses filled - with papers of similar thickness and texture, dyed to match the original paper. Only then were new paper backings applied to each of the separate panels.
While all these procedures were being completed, the new mount for the screen was also being made. This required the construction of six interior fames, made of wooden lattice-work and covered on both side with many layers of specific hand-made papers. The frames require very exact preparation in all details.
One of the greatest challenges of the treatment was the restoration of the large losses at the right end of the composition. The missing areas were replaced with undecorated paper made of the similar fibers, to match the texture, and thickness and dyed to be compatible with the original.
The final phase of the treatment was the in-painting of the repaired areas throughout the screen, to blend them with adjacent areas of the painting. No outlines or painted featured were added.
In Asia there is a long tradition of specialized care for paintings on folding screens. The techniques and materials used have not changed substantially in hundreds of years and modern conservation research has confirmed their value. If skillfully conserved, these works can survive well for centuries.
Adopt a Work of Art
In January 2007, the Ackland launched a new program to fund top priority conservation treatments. Adopt a Work of Art gives individuals and groups the opportunity to sponsor the treatment of an individual work of art. The sponsor of a treatment has the fascinating opportunity to follow its progress through written reports, photos, and, in some cases, lab visits. When the conserved work returns to the gallery, the sponsor will be acknowledged in the wall label whenever the work is displayed in the Ackland Galleries.
Contact Ackland conservator Lyn Koehnline (843-3680; koehnlin@email.unc.edu) for further information about the program.
Find out more details of the works and their needed treatments by clicking on the respective image.
Current Works Awaiting Sponsorship
Current Sponsorships
A very special thank you to Carol McNeel for being the first to support the program and adopt Roe Deer in the Snow by Courbet.
Special thanks to every member of the Ackland Art Museum Guild for their adoption of Head of a Model by Bonnat.
Past Sponsorships
