econservation

the online magazine No. 18, February 2011

Contemporary Art Wall Clock by PaulaArt

The job market where is it going?

The field of conservationrestoration has been changing considerably in front of our eyes during the last few years. Fuelled by the so called crisis, our profession has been no oasis for the social economic changes that are taking place. Its strongest impact is on the job market, and can be seen clearly in its deregulation and chaotic existence. The job market is the core of the problem, starting with the free workforce for internships and ending with the low career prospects for senior professionals. This system was already established long before the emergence of these difficult times. However, the crisis has increased the problem to levels never seen before to such an extent that cultural heritage is in peril. Of course, the direct reason is the lack of money flow, which is felt deeply by everyone, from large public institutions to small conservation businesses. A direct consequence of this is that professionals, especially recent graduates in conservation, are seeking jobs in other areas, either because after five long years of study they cant find a position in their area of specialisation, or simply because other jobs are better paid. The problems occur when, after having graduated from a degree in conservation, the possibility of finding a job is virtually inexistent so instead, graduates often seek a suitable internship, which will hopefully open doors in the job market. This is more often than not an unpaid internship, as the paid internships are difficult to encounter. It is possible to choose to work for a company but international or renowned institutions are much better for the curriculum vitae. These are usually run for educational purposes, and are nonprofit making institutions, thus its only natural that for them, internships are seen as a type of volunteer work. However, in such places interns just replace other interns, only few of them being actually integrated into the staff. So one moves on to another internship or a temporary job. Experienced conservators are no better off. As I have noticed, having experience is not necessarily a plus on the job market. More and more, older conservators in apparently permanent positions have to be let go, and replaced by interns or (underpaid) early career professionals. This of course allows institutions to meet their budgets but it also denotes a tremendous disrespect for the highly experienced professional, not as an individual but as a whole. It also means that cultural heritage itself is being cared for in a greater extent by less experienced hands. A direct consequence of this is that these older professionals must return to the job market but for them this is much more difficult to achieve as age becomes a factor versus experience in a society where youth is perpetually a prized quality. This system goes far beyond conservation and its very hard to break without a common strategy from regulators, universities and employers. The true quality of life is nowadays becoming lower and lower and we are loosing rights that had once been battled for. It is a serious problem with consequences I cannot foresee but I know they will be a decisive factor for the future of the profession. Sooner or later something has to give. Why should it be conservation?

Rui Bordalo EditorinChief

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editorial

INDEX

NEWS & VIEWS

#culturematters
By Daniel Cull

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REVIEWS Parchment and Leather Research, conservationrestoration, craft

Review by Tomasz Kozielec

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Seven Years Dedicated to the Conservation of the Modern Movement Heritage The Conference Series: Das architektonische Erbe zum aktuellen Umgang mit den Bauten der Moderne
Review by Maria Bostenaru Dan

27 27 28

NEWS Website: Google Art Project Book release: The Orthodox Christian Sakkos UPCOMING EVENTS March April 2011 Infrared Reflectography Using 3D Laser Scanning
By Christian Dietz, Gianluca Catanzariti and Alfredo Jimeno Martnez

EVENTS ARTICLES

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32

43

A Reflection on the Preventive Conservation of Archaeological Wood and the Effects of Mass Tourism The Case Study of the Vasa Warship
By Cristina CabelloBriones

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The Use of Ground Penetrating Radar for the Assessment of the Conservation State of an Historic Building
By Lucian Cristian Ratoiu

CASE STUDY

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Virtual Aesthetic Presentation of Polychrome Sculptures Preserving the artistic authenticity of polychrome carved wood pieces in the conservationrestoration process
By Daniela Cristina Pintilie

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news & view

#CULTUREMATTERS
By Daniel Cull "Why should the lamp or the house be an art object, but not our life?" (Michel Foucault, 1984) [1]

A pamphlet the Demos thinktank published a few years ago, entitled It's a Material World [2], has been a growing influence upon the con servation community, and recently IIC published an update from one of the authors [3]. The stated aim of these publications was to raise awareness and champion in wider society and politics [3, p. 242] the values of heritage conservation. I particularly appreciated the idea that conservation has a unique role within society in that conservators provide a paradigm not just for fix ing things when they are broken, but for a wider social ethos of care, where we individually and collectively take responsibility and action [2, p. 16]. In thinking about this I remembered a lecturer I had at University who once said, and I paraphrase, If you really wanted to save heritage, youd go into politics. At the time this struck me as an interesting state ment, and looking back it was per haps bizarrely the moment that I realized I wanted to study conser vation. Sometime later a visiting lecturer who was associated with the EZLN [4] lectured to us about the importance of cultural heritage to the Maya of Chiapas, Mexico, and for me the circle was squared. Just as I realized art, culture, and politics

are as much about everyday life as they are about the contents of cases in museums, I also realized that not all interactions between cultural heritage and politics take place between white men in the board rooms of quasigovernmental heritage or ganizations. The 'Material World' writings were primarily aimed at a western audience in response to the current economic climate in which arts and cultural in stitutions are increasingly being asked to justify their existence in economic terms. The authors developed the concept of social capital as an alternative to the economic approach, they con sider conservation as a spectrum of activities from the highly technical to those that anyone with a bit of training could do, therefore they call for an increase in volunteerism, with the logical as sumption that this will lead to communities see ing value in supporting heritage. As the Middle East is realizing, and this pamphlet noted, the social glue that holds communities together is changing. We are not talking to each other less; we are talking to each other differently [5, p. 8]. Many of these changes are coming as a result of the logic of the emerging social media, the logic of total access and community control. Although the authors realize that through this emerging media we can help reconnect and facilitate the formation of new geographic communities" [5, p. 8], they appear to miss or underplay the poten tial for alternative or hybrid forms of funding. Although crucially they radically invert Maslovian principles to state "preservation is not a sign of decadence, but a sign of wisdom" [5, p. 6].
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The NDP building burns next to the Egyptian Museum. Photo by darkroom productions, January 29, 2011. Some rights reserved.

The title of the Material World pamphlet was in tended as a bold statement of fact, a reminder of the role that objects, buildings, and ideas play in anchoring society [3, p. 243]. However, I read it through the prism of the movement within conser vation theory towards the value placed on safe guarding the immaterial and metaphysical, and recently reconsidered the collection of writings in light of the events in Egypt in which, during the popular uprising, risks of looting were noted at cultural institutions across the country. Whilst many cultural institutions in the West called for state intervention to protect objects, the protest ers on the streets had already taken matters into their own hands and protected the museums, ar chives and cultural sites [6]. In so doing we wit nessed that when people have an active relation ship with the past [3, p. 247] theyre not only willing to volunteer to cut the grass around the Cerne Giant but theyre willing to risk their lives for their cultural heritage. Their actions were as profound a statement on the value of conserva
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tion to society as I imagine I will ever see. Their actions suggest that it is not the artifacts them selves that are important, but the relationship that people have to them, and through them to each other, that makes them important. As her itage practitioners perhaps our most significant role then is to help generate and facilitate peoples 'active relationships' with their cultural heritage. For ultimately itll be the people who decide the future of the past. Bibliography [1] M. Foucault, On the Genealogy of Ethics: An Overview of Work in Progress, in The Foucault Reader, Paul Rabinow (ed.), Pantheon Books, New York, 1984, p. 236 [2] S. Jones and J. Holden, It's a Material World: Caring For the Public Realm, Demos, London, 2008, available at URL [pdf], accessed on February 20, 2011
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Tanks and soldiers guard the Egyptian Museum. Photo by Nebedaay, January 25, 2011. Some rights reserved.

[3] S. Jones, "Its a Material World", Studies in Conservation 55(4), 2010, pp. 242249 [4] Ejrcito Zapatista de Liberacin Nacional, available at URL, accessed on February 20, 2011 [5] Anna Somers Cocks interview with Samuel Jones, Dialogues for the New Century series, IIC

Annual General Meeting, 2010, Sackler Centre, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, January 28, 2010, available at URL [pdf], accessed on February 20, 2011 [6] Looting spreads in Egyptian cities, Al Jazeera English, 29 Jan 2011, available at URL, accessed on February 20, 2011

DANIEL CULL
Conservator The Musical Instrument Museum Daniel Cull is from the West Country of the British Isles. He 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 a conservator at the Musical Instrument Museum and as a collaborator with econservation magazine. Website: http://dancull.wordpress.com Contact: daniel.cull@themim.org

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REVIEWS

PARCHMENT AND LEATHER RESEARCH, CONSERVATIONRESTORATION, CRAFT

Review by Tomasz Kozielec October 2123, 2010 Toru, Poland Organized by: The Department of Paper and Leather Conservation of the Nicolaus Copernicus University http://www.zkpis.umk.pl/

The international conference Parchment and Leather research, conservationrestoration, craft was organized by the Department of Paper and Leather Conservation of the Nicolaus Coper nicus University in Toru, Poland, and took place on October 2123, 2010. The conference was at tended by representatives of institutions from different countries who also presented lectures on current conservationrestoration issues and modern research techniques. A concert on harp sichord, At Bach's home by Ryszard Moroz, as well as the exhibition Conservationrestoration of gilt leather students and their adviser by Halina Rosa were some of the highlights of this event.
Opening speach by Elbieta Jaboska, Head of the Depart ment of Paper and Leather Conservation.

Exhibition of cordovans.

The conference was divided into nine sessions devoted to broad views of research problems and questions regarding conservation of historic parch ment and leather artefacts. After the registration, the opening speech was given by Elbieta Jabo ska, Head of the Department of Paper and Leather Conservation. Justyna Krl Weronika Liszewska and Zofia ukow ska, from the Faculty of ConservationRestoration of Old Prints and Graphics, Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw Polytechnic (Poland), delivered the first lecture entitled Nondestructive analyses of il luminated manuscript on parchment Testamentum Vetus from the first half of the 14th century, from the collection of the Higher Clerical Seminary in Wocawek. Besides visual examination of the decayed areas of illuminations, Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) and Raman spec troscopy were performed. The results of the ana lysis were determinant for the better planning of the conservationrestoration treatments. The second lecture was given by Agns Le Gac, from the Department of ConservationRestoration of

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REVIEWS

A general view of the conference hall.

the New University of Lisbon (Portugal), who pre sented White leather glue: its reconstitution, analysis and comparison with both parchment and rabbitskin glues. The researcher used SEM EDX, originating visual and elemental mapping images, to analyse white leather, parchment and samples of glues. This research is important, among other things, in the study of the rich polychrome coatings applied on the 17th18th century religious sculptures in Portugal. Closing the first session, and after a coffeebreak, the participants had the opportunity to attend the opening of the exhibi tion Conservationrestoration of gilt leather students and their adviser. Afterwards, the lecture on Biodeterioration of historic parchment and leather a summary of studies in the Department of Paper and Leather Conservation given by Joanna KarbowskaBer ent, from that same department at the Nicolaus Copernicus University, opened the second session and described research carried out on vegetable
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and alum tanned leathers and parchments (mainly from historical objects). Many processes and de gradation stages of the materials caused by dif ferent microorganisms were observed. As seen, one of the most important factors in stopping biode terioration is the presence of vegetable tannins which protect the collagen fibbers against decay. The presentation Some early examples of sewing tackets and thonged extensions by Matthew Hat ton, from the Glucksman Conservation Department of the Trinity College Library in Dublin (Ireland), emphasized eclectic problems of fragmented texts in collections (which were brought together to form single or multiple volumes) based on the example of manuscript 1337 Miscellanea Hiiber nica. Among the many interesting facts he de scribed, the author presented interesting solutions of restoration. The afternoon session started with Marlena Viha kara and Wiebke Findeisen, from the Centre for
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Presentation by Joanna KarbowskaBerent, Department of Paper and Leather Conservation, Nicolaus Copernicus Uni versity, Toru, Poland.

Ojcumia SieradzkaMalec from Cracow, Poland, speaking about problems with gilt leather decorating the Royal Wawel Castle.

Preservation and Digitisation, The National Lib rary of Finland, with their lecture Conservation and digitisation of medieval parchment fragments in the National Library of Finland in which they presented the great and large collection of that Library, and the making of the project Save the Book. This project assumes the digitization, docu mentation and basic conservation treatments. The lecture on Technology study and conservation of thirteen traditional rural shoes of 19th century from Florina region, northern Greece was given by Ekaterini Malea and Anastasia Tampaka, from the Technological Educational Institute of Athens (Greece), broadening the knowledge on techno logy of leather shoes from 19001935 from that region. The authors presented the conservation restoration treatments performed as well as the subject of a footwear exhibition. The next lecture, entitled Parchment scrolls in the collection of the Jewish Historical Institute project of the returning memory. Decoding for bidden meanings by Violetta Bachur, from the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw (Poland), introduced the conference participants to the world of great Jewish art and craft. The different types of parchments and methods of preparation, Jewish scrolls, mezuzot, and many other sacred
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objects, as well as the Jewish law were presented in detail. She also indicated the state of preser vation of these objects. The fourth session started with two lectures on the history, techniques of making and restoring cordovans (also called gilt or Spanish leather). This session was opened by Ojcumia Sieradzka Malec, from the Royal Wawel Castle in Cracow (Po land), with the presentation of Wawels cordovans the issues outline. The lecture focused on the decoration history of the Royal Wawel Castle in Cracow with the description of some technical aspects. The next presentation, Conservationrestora tion of cordovans problems and solutions by Halina Rosa from the Department of Paper and Leather Conservation of the Nicolaus Copernicus University, showed the long history and method of preparation of cordovans from ancient times. The oldest written source on gilt leather is the description of Peder Manson from the 1515. The main part of her speech was about the state of preservation and conservationrestoration prob lems, such as the levelling deformations of cor dovans and the cleaning of the painting layer. She shared her wide and long experience on this field with the participants.
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Grayna MacanderMajkowska, also from the Acad emy of Fine Art in Warsaw, approached a very in teresting subject Pastel portrait on parchment the unique work of art certainly convincing all participants that such great historical objects are outstanding works of art (i. e. have a specific technique). The work of artists who were using the pastel technique reached its apogee in the 18th century. The author discussed two examples of pastels from the second half of 18th century. The parchment theme was continued by Katarzyna Nowak, Anna Rychter and Aleksandra SzallaKlee mann, from the Conservation Section of the De partment of Preservation Jagiellonian Library Collection in Cracow, with the presentation of Variety of use of parchment as bookbinding and writing material in the collection of the Jagiello nian Library. The authors indicated the use of this material for bookbinding purposes such as raised bands, cloth joints or pastedowns, flyleafs, covers, and for the making of sheets of manuscripts and prints. They showed that parchment has a very good durability, permanence, and state of preservation if stored in proper and stable condi tions of temperature and relative humidity. The authors also posed questions concerning the dis covery of codex fragments during conservation restoration treatments. The morning of the second day started with a series of announcements and short presentations. One that must be highlighted was dedicated to the Museum of Literature and Printing in Grbocin, a museum of writing, printing, papermaking, and bookbinding history and technology on the sub urbs of Toru. The great pearl of this region was presented by its founder and head, Dariusz Subocz with The machines and bookbinder devices in the collection of Literature and Printing Museum in Grbocin. Examples of papermaking moulds, book binding and writing tools, composition of old inks,
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organized in past museum workshops, giving know ledge on the processing of animal skins into leath er and parchment, and on how to produce paper by hand, as well as how to print, sew and cover books, and many others subjects were presented. Parchment Torah from Lubaczw conservation problems and solutions, again by Katarzyna Nowak, was the next interesting lecture. The analysis of the technique, the state of preservation, causes of destruction and conservation treatments of this intensively deteriorated object were presen ted. The use of neodymium magnets for restora tion purposes was one of many other interesting solutions shown. The theme of museum collection initiated by Dariusz Subocz was continued by Mo nika Zakroczymska's lecture The short charac teristics of the collection of Museum in Gdynia, from the Museum of City Gdynia (Poland). The collection of photographs, documents, maps and plans, posters and diverse material culture items (such as furniture, home and gardening devices, clothes, flags, dishes, and decorations) were presented. Another enthralling museum collection was pre sented by Ewa MartinSobecka, entitled Collec tion of leather objects in Ethnographic Museum in Toru. There are almost 60.000 different ob jects in their collection! Haberdashery, furniture upholstery, small bellows used in beekeeping, leather handbags and bags, suitcases, spectacle case, holders for knives, razors, cigarette cases, wallets, purses, briefcases and watch straps and many other leather objects were showed in the presentation. The fifth session was opened with Conservation Restoration of Nubian Leather Finds from the 11th Century by Myriam Krutzsch, from the Egyptian Museum in Berlin (Germany), Claudia Nser, from the Humboldt University in Berlin, and Patricia
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Examples of beautiful parchment objects from the collection of the Museum of Westphalia and Lippe were presented by Ryszard Moroz, from the Westphalian State Museum of Art and Cultural History (LWL) in Mnster (Germany) in his lec ture Openwork parchment. The unique tech nique of such outstanding objects (ornamented parchment by cutting out a variety of patterns with great precision!) and their conservation problems were emphasized.
"ConservationRestoration of Nubian Leather Finds from the 11th Century by Myriam Krutzsch, Claudia Nser and Patricia Engel.

Engel, from the European Research Centre for Book and Paper ConservationRestoration in Horn (Aus tria). Specifications and conservation treatments of 100 fragments of inscribed parchment, numer ous remains of leather bindings with a multitude of decorative elements and several texts on folded leather were shown. The presented materials were especially important for leather conservators be cause little is known about bookbinding in 11th century Nubia. The authors focused also on the Step leather project and the Environmental Leather Projects. Protecting works over the Coptic parchment manu script (the 9th and 10th century) and the specificity of its destruction by Anna Thomme, from the Department of Art, Collection, Books and Docu ments Conservation in Toru, was an interesting example of full description of conservation treat ments carried out from rescue treatments to the stage of making of protective wrappers. Three manuscripts discovered by Polish archaeologists were in very poor condition. Since 2006, the books have been preserved in the National Museum Work shop in Alexandria, in a common project of the Mediterranean Archaeological Centre of Warsaw University and Polish Workshops of Heritage Conservation S.A.
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The sixth session started with Sara Mazzarino's lecture, from the British Library in London (UK), on the Humidification and tensioning of parch ment manuscripts limitations and possibilities of different method of parchment tensioning during conservation treatments. An important question was raised: Is it always appropriate to humidify and tension degraded parchment documents?. In the lecture Problems and questions connected with the conservation of 15thcentury parchment codex Breviarium Vladislaviense, by Weronika Liszewska and Jacek Tomaszewski, from the Aca demy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, the authors discussed its state of preservation, historical, ethical and aesthetical problems. A modern technique of filling losses in parchment sheets by using of parchment cellulose pulp mixture was presented along with the description of the conservation treatments. However, not only issues concerning the conser vationrestoration treatments were discussed dur ing the conference. The fact that the documenta tion is a very important tool for conservators convinced Penelope Banou, Ourania Kanakari and Angeliki Stassinou from the General State Archives of Greece, to present Documentation as a tool to conservation of parchment collections belonging to the General State Archives, Greece. They underlined that the study of palaeography, diplomatic elements (typology), technology of
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materials and techniques, etc., were essential to resolve conservation and preservation issues, and showed many interesting examples of solu tions of conservationrestoration problems. Conservation of a Trousseau Chest Coming from Balkans to Turkey, by Nil Baydar from Ankara Uni versity (Turkey), was not only a full description of construction technology but also of the conser vation treatments carried out on this 18th century object. Achieving a beautiful result was possible due to a hard and long work (2 years) on seriously decayed materials leather, corroded metals and other. Izabela Zajc, from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, started the seventh session with the presentation of Leather bindings traps and surprises on which she demonstrated an example of a valuable book cover which looked like leather but was really parchment dyed brown. Another issue discussed was the impossibility of determi nation of fat content (in percentage) of ancient leather for regreasing conservation treatment. Sometimes some of the treatments which can be carried out on ancient leather require complex solutions. Examples are the recovery of the ori ginal size of leather covers as well as the elimina tion of deformations on the book spine. Malaurie Auliac and Aline Leclercq, from Conds School in Paris (France), raised a discussion about the conservation of leather bindings with Japa nese tissue. The authors showed interesting solu tions of the use of Japanese tissue, and results of questionnaires conducted among conservators. The Missal from Kranik (1400) the chosen conservation issues by Jolanta uk Orysiak and Ryszard Orysiak, from Lublin Museum in Lublin (Poland), was a presentation about the conser vationrestoration of one of the most precious
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pearls among the Polish collection of illumi nated medieval manuscripts. A very important question should conservators remove all visible dirt and anaesthetic remains from the surface of materials during conserva tion work? gained special significance after the lecture by Aleksandra SzallaKleemann, from the Jagiellonian Library Collection in Cracow, Anna ukowskaZieliska, from the Jagiellonian University Archive in Cracow, and Joanna Sobczyk, from the Laboratory of analysis and nondestruc tive investigations of heritage objects, National Museum in Cracow, entitled Banderia Prutenorum conservation search query. The authors used digital imaging to recreate missing illumination of the manuscript. The Banderia Prutenorum is a 15th century parchment codex with images of 56 Teutonic and Prussian flags (some of them were conquered during the Tannenberg Battle in July 1410), from the collection of the Jagiellonian Library. It is a good example of a successful re construction of missed (cut off) parchment sheet with illumination depicting the Madonna with Child. Reconstruction was possible by digital analyses of remains of the painting layer (hardly visible smudges), on the page with the reflection of Madonna on one side (back side of next illumi nated parchment sheet). The digital analyses al lowed the reconstruction of the outlines of the Madonna and Child. In the end of the lecture, the authors asked what would have happened with the Madonna reflection, if the pages of the manuscript had been just as it usually happens cleaned?. After the coffee break and initiating a new session, the lecture The conservation and reconstruction of the leather items which were found during the archaeological research in Gdask was presented by Beata Ceynowa, from the Archaeological Mu seum in Gdask (Poland). Although the examples of leather objects from archaeological excavations
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Magorzata Grupa from the Archaeology Institute, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toru, Poland, speaking about methods of conservationrestoration of archaeological leather.

The presentation of conservation of archaeological leather from Gdask Historic State Museum by Bartosz Iwaszkiewicz and Halina Rosa.

had a perfect state of preservation (due to the high humidity with simultaneous absence of air, among others!) many problems may arise during their conservation treatments. These problems are caused by: the separation of particular elements of single products from bulk of others; financial aspects glycerine method of conservation is used in most cases because it is often the simplest and the cheapest treatment; reconstruction as little intervention as possible. The previous conservation issue was further de veloped by another archaeologist, Anna Drkow ska from the Archaeology Institute of Nicolaus Co pernicus University, in Problems of conservation and reconstruction of historical shoes from dif ferent historical periods and found during differ ent excavations and in various environments. It was emphasized that treatments such as disinfec tion, cleaning and impregnation have a signific ant influence on further reconstruction works. In turn, Magorzata Grupa, also from the same In stitute, presented the methods of conservation of the archaeological leather used in the Archaeolo gical Institute of Nicolaus Copernicus University. Conservation treatments in the Institute are con ducted since 1983. Recently researchers focused on the method of leather conservation at low tem peratures by means of a vacuum chamber.
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Bartosz Iwaszkiewicz and Halina Rosa, from the Department of Paper and Leather Conservation in Toru, showed in their lecture Conservation of archaeological leather from the Historical Mu seum of the City Gdask a variety of archaeolo gical elements that were found and analyses per formed to those objects. They also presented stand ard conservation treatments which are carried out in the Department. Removal of black irontannin complexes through ultrasounds bathing in water solution of EDTA with addition of the Vulpex soap, retanning with wateracetone solutions of sumac, and regreasing (van Soest mixture) are only some examples of treatments they discussed. On the last day, the eighth session was started by Ryszard Moroz, from the Westphalian State Mu seum of Art and Cultural History (LWL) in Mnster (Germany), in his lecture The document case of Baron von Stein and the gothic chest the con servation problems with accumulations on the leather grain presented an interesting technique of two famous leather objects of Baron document case, the outstanding German politician who lived at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, and the chest which is a museum rarity. The state of pre servation of the objects was poor, one of the em phasised issues being the accumulations on the leather grain which were visible at naked eye.
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Conservation of the saddle in the western type from the collection of the Horsemanship and Hunt ing Museum in Warsaw the diversity of materials and resulting conservation problems by Dorota JutrzenkaSupryn, from the Department of Paper and Leather Conservation in Toru, was a review on techniques of ancient saddles. The author in dicated that the objects forming the big group in study are not original, but copies pretending to be historical (especially from the 17th18th century). Her lecture focused on the conservation treatment of the saddle from the Warsaw Museum. Finally, the last session was started with a lecture by Elbieta GrskaWiklo, from the Archive Uni versity of Glasgow (Scotland), who described the Archive collection which spans from 1304 to the present. The author focused on the Blackhouse Charters, the collection of parchment documents dated between 13th and 18th centuries, which were repacked and prepared for digitisation. It was also mentioned the student's support within this pro gramme, helping to developed their knowledge on preventive conservation, methods of securing the documents as well as on their storage. Ethical issues in conservationrestoration were raised by Magorzata PronobisGajdzis and Wioleta ugowska, from the Department of Paper and
Saddle from the collection of the Horsemanship and Hunting Museum in Warsaw, subject of the presentation by Dorota JutrzenkaSupryn.

Leather Conservation in Toru, in their presenta tion The parchment and the leather in the his toric codices the ethical issues. The lecture sup ported by the idea of Ksawery Piwocki's (that not only the work of art is important but the acting of the artists also influences the value of the ob ject) was concerned on controversial examples of removing original parts of codices. The authors concluded that the restorer must be aware that there should not be any violations in the historic quality of the object even if there are some efforts to improve the aesthetics of the historic item. Elbieta Jaboska, Magorzata PronobisGajdzis and Jolanta Czuczko, also from the Department of Paper and Leather Conservation in Toru, raised another important issue with their lecture Copy ing of precious documents and archival books as good practice in protection during the exposition and access. Because of the unique character of rare, extremely valuable historical objects, there are cases when exhibiting the originals is impos sible. For this reason, copies of original objects are made. Examples of copies of rare historical objects and copies made by students of the Department of Paper and Leather Conservation were presented. The large variety of these lectures testifies to the fact that problems of research, preservation and
Presentation The parchment and the leather in their historic codices the ethical issues by Magorzata PronobisGajdzis and Wioletta ugowska.

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methods of conservationrestoration of parchment and leather are a significant concern among con servators. There is a wide variety of objects made of leather and parchment in the world collections and many of them surprise by their beauty or un usual technique. The significant sensitivity of these materials to physical, chemical and mechanical factors motivate conservators to elaborate new and safe methods for their conservation, and to ensure stable storage conditions. Although the conference has presented many interesting case studies, describing different treatment methods and analysis techniques, there are still many prob lems that await solution. Another conference, this time dedicated to the conservationrestoration of historic objects, is being planned for the near future. Credits: Photos in this review are by the conference organizers.

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TOMASZ KOZIELEC
Conservator Contact: Tomasz.Kozielec@umk.pl
Tomasz Kozielec is a paper and leather conservator. He graduated in conservation from the Department of Paper and Leather Conservation of the Nicolaus Co pernicus University where he now lectures. His re search interests are the history and technology of cellulosic and proteinaceous materials, modern ana lytical techniques of historical objects, and the ap plication of new materials and methods for conserva tionrestoration purposes, such as the use of bacterial cellulose and neodymium magnets, or the mass strength ening of brittle 19th century papers.
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SEVEN YEARS DEDICATED TO THE CONSERVATION OF THE MODERN MOVEMENT HERITAGE

The Conference Series: Das architektonische Erbe zum aktuellen Umgang mit den Bauten der Moderne Architectural Heritage on the Contemporary Approach to the Buildings of Modernity
Review by Maria Bostenaru Dan Karlsruhe, Germany, 20042010 | Organised by Dipl. Ing. Alex Dill and DOCOMOMO Germany Between 2004 and 2010 a series of seven conferences took place in Karlsruhe, Germany, on the conser vation of architectural heritage throughout Europe. Aimed primarily at practicing architects, they were organised by Dipl. Ing. Alex Dill, from the Faculty of Architecture, University of Karlsruhe, together with DOCOMOMO (International Committee for DOcumentation and COnservation of buildings, sites and neighbourhoods of the MOdern MOvement) and Beton Marketing Sd. It was also the framework in which the German chapter of DOCOMOMO was relaunched in 2006 and a declaration adopted. The countries in focus were Germany, Russia, the Netherlands, Italy, Czech Republic, France, Sweden/Scandinavia and Great Britain. The opening and closing conferences focused on Russia, for which lessons should be learned from the functioning practice in conservation in Western and Central Europe. Outreach activities were accom panying exhibitions, books releases, meetings of the DOCOMOMO chapter, and related conferences. In 2011 the series will be discontinued, being replaced by a conference on architecture theory: Authenticity. Between 2004 and 2010, a series of oneday con ferences, always on Fridays, took place at the Uni versity of Karlsruhe, Germany, in cooperation with DOCOMOMO and supported by Beton Marketing Sd, as research initiative of the university. The topic of the conference was how to preserve and use cultural heritage buildings of the Modern Movement which define the face of today in many European cities. Organiser was architect Alex Dill, academic counsellor from the Institut fr Baugestal tung, Baukonstruktion und Entwerfen 2 (Institute for Building Configuration, Building Construction and Projects 2) (20042007), the then head of the chair of Architecture and Furniture from the Insti tute Projects, Arts and Theory (20072011). Each conference was accompanied by an exhibition fo cused on heritage of Modernity in the respective geographic zones, the vernissage of which took
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place in the evening. Starting with 2006 when the German DOCOMOMO committee was redefined, the days after the conference were reserved for the meeting of the committees German chapter. The conferences were recognised by the chamber of architects as continued learning events for pro fessionals, although they were also open to the general public. The first three conferences focused on the differences in the approach in Western and Eastern Europe, having in focus a country from each. The following conferences focused on one country each. We attended all conferences, except for the opening and closing ones. Russia and Germany The first conference took place in January 2004 and it focused on the challenges for architecture
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of Modernity in Russia and Germany in a compar ative approach. The approach was, as the confer ence proved, fundamentally different the pre servation practices from the West did not reach Russia and the buildings of the Russian construc tivists, which are of fundamental importance for the history of architecture, were first documented and preserved in form of study models. It was also an occasion to compare the different terms of Avantgarde, Modernism and Modernity. At the time the buildings were erected, there were more common features in the new practice than today in conservation. Of use for the conference was the cooperation between the University of Karlsruhe and Russian specialists, some of which were visit ing scientists in Karslruhe for several years, such as Dr. Sergej Fedorov, also coorganiser of the conference. The conference was advertised on the German internet portal of construction news BauNetz. It was accompanied by an exhibition on architecture models of the Russian Avantgarde, a cooperation project of the students from Karls ruhe and of the University of Stuttgart. The con ference took place on the last day of the exhibi

tion. Among the subjects approached were Russi an Constructivist buildings from St. Petersburg and Moscow, the house Schminke in Lbau [1] (figure 1) and the preservation and maintenance of Bton brut (Sichtbeton). Later on, Rdiger Kramm pub lished a book on this topic [2], as accompanying publication of the conference series. The Netherlands and Russia The second conference took place in October 2004 on the subject of the architecture from the Nether lands, with some contributions about Russia and Germany (Rettung vor dem Zerfall. Tagung an der Fakultt fr Architektur zur Erhaltung moderner Bauten). Continuing the intentions of the first con ference to facilitate the exchange and encourage the preservation of the buildings of the Modern Movement all over Europe, a delegation of the Mos cow Institute of Architecture took part in the con ference. The chair of the working group on Tech nology of DOCOMOMO, Wessel de Jonge, presented the restoration of the Sanatorium Zonnestraal in Hilversum (the Netherlands; figure 2). From the interesting problematic regarding the restoration of the sanatorium, we can mention the replace ment of the windows that had to be made out of a special glass in order to reflect similarly, so the

Figure 1 (left). House Schminke, Lbau (Germany), architect Hans Scharoun (193233). Photo by Wojtek Gurak, Some rights reserved. Figure 2 (below). Sanatorium Zonnestraal, Hilversum (the Netherlands), architects Jan Duiker, Bernard Bijvoet and Jan Gerko Wiebenga (1928). Photo by Pimvantend, Some rights reserved.

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sand to produce them sufficiently transparent even in double glazing was imported from the Baltic states. There was also a presentation of the dean of the faculty Prof. Matthias Pfeifer on structural restoration of buildings in Germany. The corresponding exhibition displayed the work of Konrad Wachsmann, a German architect who immigrated to the US and was a pioneer of the prefabricated construction. The University of Karlsruhe has a database on German architects who were active outside Germany (Architekten im Exil 19331945). Italy (and Czech Republic) The third conference took place in January 2006 and it focused on Italy, with Eastern/Central Europe presentations about the Czech Republic. It was the year when DOCOMOMO Germany was newly defined, occasion to have the vicechair of DOCOMOMO in ternational, Prof. Maristella Casciato, among the speakers. Maristella Casciato gave an overview talk on the research and practice of restoration in Italy. It was followed by two case studies: the case of Lingotto, a hierarchical model, by Christiana Chiorino from the Polytechnic University of Turin. The author conducted research on the preservation of Pier Luigi Nervi buildings in the context of the XX Olympic Winter Games held in Turin in 2006, focusing on the approach of rein forced concrete and defining some criteria on which buildings should be preserved for their structural characteristics [3, 4]; the case of Ivrea, a dynamic model, by Enrico Giacopelli. Recent efforts of the presenter, together with Patrizia Bonifazio, are taking place to include the city of Ivrea on the UNESCO World Heritage List [57]. For this purpose, International Summer Schools focused on the architecture and urbanism are being organised. An open sky museum of mod
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ern architecture (Museo a cielo aperto dell'Archi tettura Moderna di Ivrea) exists in Ivrea since 2001 to promote cultural tourism for the valuation of this heritage. After the lunch break, two case studies from the Czech Republic were presented: the Villa Mller in Prague, by Petr Urlich from the Czech Technical University, about research and practice of the restoration; and Villa Tugendhat in Brno (figure 3, on which two presentations were given. The first was by Iveta Cern about the history of the building and the other by Prof. Ivo Hammer from the University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HAWK) at Hildesheim / Vienna, whose research is dedic ated to the materiality of surfaces built of ma terials of the Modern Movement, such as steel and glass. In October 2005, before the conference, a team of photographers from the Institut fr Baugestal tung, Baukonstruktion und Entwerfen 2 visited the Villa Tugendhat, and an exhibition accompanied the conference. Later, a photo documentation of the Villa was published [8]. Three years later, in June 2008, a further DOCOMOMO conference and a chapter members meeting were organised exactly at the Villa Tugendhat (minutes are available on line), accompanied by the Declaration of Brno.
Figure 3. Villa Tugendhat, Brno (Czech Republic), architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (192839). Photo by Mr. Hyde, 2006.

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France The fourth conference took place in January 2007 and focused on the French architecture. It was organised in cooperation with the Centre Culturel Franais at Karlsruhe, Germany. The overview talk was given by Christiane SchmuckleMollard, Chief Architect at Historic Monuments, Paris. After a discussion about Le Corbusier buildings listed as UNESCO World Heritage by Michel Richard from the Le Corbusier Foundation in Paris, case study presentations followed. The Maison La Roche (figure 4), where the foundation Le Corbusier is situated, was renovated afterwards, in 2009, as we had the occasion to learn during our visit. More case studies were presented after the lunch break, such as La Maison de Verre, Paris (1932, architect Pierre Chareau), by Bertrand Bauchet. Chareau was an architect whose interiors are characterized by flexible partitions between the rooms sliding walls and similar. Maison de Verre (The Glass House, figure 5) is called this way due to its facade made entirely of glass tiles [9]; Other case studies were La Villa Cavroix in Croix (1932, architect Robert MalletStevens), by Prof. Richard Klein, Lille; La Villa E1027 in Roquebrune (1929, architects Eileen Gray and Jean Badovici), by Prof. Rainer Franke, Karlsruhe; Cit de La Muette a vertical garden city (1934, architect Marcel Lods), by Prof. Pieter Uyttenhove from Ghent, Belgium, Le Havre and Auguste Perret, by Prof. Joseph Abram, Nancy, Paris. There were also talks on Germany, such as the in troductory one by Rdiger Kramm on the approach of the Modern Movement architecture today, de tailing the diminishing acceptance for buildings of the 1960s and the return to traditional housing such as Fachwerk. The conference was accompanied by an exhibition about the city of ROYAN, a ville nouvelle of the
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Figure 4. Maison La Roche, Paris, France, architect Le Corbusier (1923). Photo by M. Bostenaru, 2010.

Figure 5. Maison de Verre, Paris (France), architect Pierre Chareau (192831). Photo by Subrealistsandu, 2009, Some rights reserved.

reconstruction 19471959, photographs by Dirk Altenkirch, Karlsruhe, a city built entirely after the Second World War. This was the only conference after which a publication was issued, containing papers of the presentations in the original lan guage, respectively German, English or French [10]. In the meeting of the German chapter of DOCOMOMO a Declaration of Karlsruhe was re leased and can be consulted online. Sweden (and Scandinavia) The fifth conference took place in January 2008, and it was focused on Sweden. This was also ad vertised in BauNetz. The introductory speech about the situation in Scandinavia was given by Ola Wedebrunn, cochair of the DOCOMOMO Inter
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national Technology working group from Copen hagen. A second introductory talk was about the 20th century heritage in Sweden. These were fol lowed by case studies such as The Upper School for Girls, by Torbjrn Almqvist, from Stockholm, The Civic Hall from Eslv, by Mats Edstrm, who also wrote a book on this subject [11], Siedlung Vllingby, by Sven Lorentzi from Stockholm, and The Town Hall in Gteborg, by Claes Caldenby, among other not so extensively presented case studies. The accompanying exhibition was entitled Bel levue MOMONECO focusing on the Bellevue, a seaside resort in Denmark, and documented in the frame of the European project MOMONECO, MOdern MOvement NEighbourhood Cooperation, modernist dreams 4 case studies funded through the CULTURA 2000 European scheme. In the pro ject there were 4 sites involved: Sunila in Finland, BellevueBellavista in Denmark, Bat'ovanyPar tiznske in Slovakia and Ivrea in Italy. Except for Bellevue, the other three were industrial sites. The Bellevue resort was designed by the archi tect Arne Jacobsen in the 1930s. Great Britain The sixth conference took place in January 2009 and it focused on Great Britain. Immediately after the introduction, the president of DOCOMOMO Great Britain and the editor of the extracts from DOCOMOMO registries [12], Dennis Sharp, spoke about the Modern Movement in Great Britain. Overviews were presented by Keyvan Lankarani, from Avanti Architects, London, Igea Troiani from the University of Oxford and Alan Powers from the University of Greenwich. These alternated with presentations of case study as follows: the architecture of Ern Goldfinger, an Hungarian immigrant less known outside Great Britain and whose centenary took place recently, by James
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Figure 6. De la Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea (UK), architects Eric Mendelsohn and Serge Chermayeff (1935). Photo by Marta Gutowska, 2006, Some rights reserved.

Dunnet, from JD Architects, London; the restor ation project of the De La Warr Pavilion (arch. Erich Mendelsohn and Serge Chermayeff, figure 6), by John McAslan from JMA Architects, London, a project which was also the subject of a book [13]; and the Flat Roof House, 1934 (arch. C. Lucas), by Yasmin Shariff from DS Architects, Hertford. The last case study presented was about the Zeche Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex in Ger many, listed as UNESCO World Heritage and an example to be followed in the conversion of in dustrial architecture through the IBA Emscher Park project in Ruhr (European Capital of Culture in 2010). From the many presentations, one of the most interesting was a peripheral Modern small scale building that was a victim of speculation and was demolished in order to use the property for a higher building, which unfortunately could not be avoided. However, the property was classified as green belt, of obviously lower value than the Modernist building. We could learn lessons from this for other countries, such as Romania, where recently, at the end of 2009, a lowrise building by interwar architect Henrietta Delavrancea Gibory was demolished for similar reasons.
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Another interesting talk was the presentation of the Twentieth Century Society (C20 Society), which seems to take over in Great Britain many of DOCOMOMO's attributes. The conference was followed by the vernissage of two exhibitions, one in the well established tradition regarding the architectural potential of modern architecture by DOCOMOMO Great Bri tain called British Case Studies (figure 7) and the other regarding the prize of the Wstenrot Stiftung foundation from Germany concerning projects in context (figure 8).
Figure 7. Image of the exhibition hall in the main building of the architecture faculty, exhibition about British Case Studies, Photo by M. Bostenaru, 2009.

Russia (and Germany) The seventh and last conference took place in January 2010 and, like the first one from the series, was focused on Russia and Germany. The overview talk was given by Natalia Dushkina about the Modern Movement Heritage in Russia. The presented case studies from Russia were the Stu dents Commune House (Arch. Nicolaev), project and realization, by Vsevolod Kulish, Moscow, and the Haus Narkomfin (Arch. Ginzburg), a project by Alexey Ginzburg, Moscow. In between the presentations on the two coun tries there was an interesting overview on the situation in Ukraine by Alexander Bouryak, from Kharkiv (Ukraine). The case studies presented from Germany were: the Umspannwerk BerlinScharnhorst, by Paul Kahl feld, Berlin; the ADBG Schule Bernau (Arch. H. Meyer), by Franz Jaschke, Berlin; and the Fagus Werk (Arch. W. Gropius and A. Meyer), by Ulrich Pagels, from Hannover. The results of student studies were also presented, such as the AvantGarde Heritage workshop in St. Petersburg by Diana Zitzmann, and Alex Dill, as well as the report from the excursion Magni togorsk Ernst Mays buildings today by Thomas Flierl, Berlin. The exhibition was called AvantGarde Defama tion World Cultural Heritage and showed a con trast between the approaches in the East and the West, Russia and Germany. Conclusions In 2011, instead of the eighth conference from the series, the organizers were planning, together with the annual meeting of the DOCOMOMO chapter

Figure 8. Image of the exhibition hall in the building Kollegium gebude am Ehrenhof, exhibition Gestaltungspreis der Wstenrot Stiftung. Photo by M. Bostenaru, 2009.

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in Germany, a conference on architecture theory entitled Authenticity that took place on the 28th of January 2011, in the same tradition as the previous meetings. However, this conference was not accompanied by an exhibition, a loss that adds to the lack of related field trips. The conferences we participated in were extremely instructive, covering a wide range of countries and presenting detailed case studies. The exhi bitions provided a welcomed enrichment of these meetings and were also useful for networking. We somehow feel sorry that there were not more books published to document these conferences and that the only one documenting the presen tations is not available online. The speakers were great names in heritage conservation and many of them are published authors with books on the restoration projects they presented at the con ference, although sometimes the objects were the subject of books by other authors. Literature on conservation of the Modern Movement build ings (figure 9) is generally rare once approaches are also new. Some time ago these buildings were still considered not old enough to be part of the heritage. This was also the reason of the creation of DOCOMOMO, but still the documentation of the history of architecture is better represented than conservation issues in the work of the association in our opinion. Of course the conference could not cover all relevant buildings even of the covered countries and obviously cannot replace the study trips to see the restored buildings. Perhaps the future conferences could be held at various loc ations in order to allow in situ visits. Acknowledgments We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Marie Curie IntraEuropean Fellowship for the project CA'REDIVIVUS "Preservation of historic reinforced concrete housing buildings across
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Figure 9. Books related to conservation of the heritage of Modern Architecture in Germany, mainly the series Baudenk male der Moderne. Photo by M. Bostenaru, 2009.

Europe" and of the Marie Curie Reintegration Grant for the project PIANO "The innovation in the plan of the current floor: Zoning in blocks of flats for the middle class in the first half of the 20th century", which helped us to attend the conferences in 20062009.
References [1] B. Burkhard (ed.), Scharoun Haus Schminke: Die Geschichte einer Instandsetzung, Karl Krmer Verlag, Stuttgart, 2002 [2] R. Kramm and T. Schalk, Sichtbeton, Betrachtungen, Verlag Bau und Technik, Dsseldorf, 2007 [3] S. Pace, M. Rosso, and C. Chiorino, Italia 61: The Nation on Show, Umberto Allemande, Torino, 2006 [4] C. Chiorino, Structural concrete architectural heritage, problems and strategies for documentation and conservation. The case study of Turin, in Proceed ings of the 2nd International fib Congress, Naples, 58 June 2006, 2006 [5] E. Giacopelli and P. Bonifazio (eds.), Il territorio futuro. Letture e norme per il patrimonio dell archi tettura moderna di Ivrea, Umberto Allemandi & C. Edi tore, Torino, 2007 [6] P. Bonifazio and E. Giacopelli, Olivetti/Ivrea.
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Cultura di fabbrica e cultura architettonica, Editore Mondadori Electa, 2010 [7] P. Bonifazio and E. Giacopelli, Ivrea, passato e futuro di una company town, Parametro 262, Anno XXXVI Marzo/Aprile, 2006 [8] A. Dill, R. Kramm and I. Cerna with C. Engel, T. Mechau and B. Seeland, Vila Tugendhat Brno, Was muth, 2008 [9] P. Chareau and B.B. Taylor, Pierre Chareau. De signer and Architect, Taschen Verlag, 1998 [10] R. Kramm (ed.), Zum aktuellen Umgang mit den Bauten der Moderne: Frankreich, Universitt Karlsruhe, Fakultt fr Architektur, Institut fr Baugestaltung, Baukonstruktion und Entwerfen, Karlsruhe, 2007 [11] M. Edstrm, Medborgarhuset i Eslv Eslv Civic Hall, Arkitektur Frlag, 2007 [12] D. Sharp and C. Cooke, The Modern Movement in Architecture Selections from the DOCOMOMO re gisters, 010 Publishers, Rotterdam, 2000 [13] A. Fairley, De La Warr Pavilion: The Modernist Masterpiece, Merrell Publishers Ltd, 2006

The News section is publishing diverse information on cultural heritage topics, such as onsite 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.econservationline.com

MARIA BOSTENARU DAN

Architectural Engineer Maria Bostenaru Dan (Dipl.Ing.) has an engineer ing degree in architecture, specialisation in ur banism, from the Universitt Karlsruhe, Germany (1999). She specialised in the study of risks on built heritage, seismic retrofit, doing research in Karlsruhe (Germany), Pavia (Italy) and Bucharest (Romania).
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NEWS

GOOGLE ART PROJECT

"Explore museums from around the world, discover and view hundreds of artworks at incredible zoom levels, and even create and share your own collection of masterpieces"

Googles last tool has surprised not only art lovers among the general public but also art historians and conservators. Google Art Project is a direct and interactive way for anyone to visit one of 17 major art museums in 9 countries for free, without leaving the comfort of their home. Up to this point, the museums that have collaborated in this pro ject and agreed to exhibit their galleries online are Altes Nationalgalerie, The Freer Gallery of Art Smithsonian, National Gallery (London), The Frick Collection, Gemldegalerie, The Metropolitan Mu seum of Art, MoMA, Museo Reina Sofia, Museo Thyseen Bornemisza, Museum Kampa, Palace of Versailles, Rijksmuseum, The State Hermitage Mu seum, State Tretyakov Gallery, Tate, Uffizi and Van Gogh Museum. One of the finest features of this project is that not only it enables the visitor to walk through the museum rooms, in a 360 view, but it also al lows visualising the artworks at incredible zoom levels. This project promotes easy access to art but moreover, it offers an important tool for the study of technical aspects of artworks, a tool that will prove useful to scholars, teachers, research ers, conservators and many other professionals. The idea started as part of the 20% project, the time that Google allows its engineers to work on their own initiatives. The Art Project is powered by their Street View technology and after 18 months in the making, it the includes 385 gallery rooms with more than a thousand highresolution images by 486 artists. From these, there are 17 pictures one from each museum that are available at su
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http://www.googleartproject.com/

perhigh resolution, among which "The bedroom" and "The Starry Night" by Vincent van Gogh, "In the Conservatory" by Edouard Manet, "The Nightwatch" and "Return of the Prodigal Son" by Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn, to name just a few. These images are scans with over one gigapixel in size (over 1 billion pixels), the largest having more than 12 gigapixels. This introduces a whole new experience for the viewer who has never had the possibility to analyse such close ups. As a curi osity, but perhaps deliberate, the painting chosen for scanning from the National Gallery is "The Am bassadors" by Hans Holbein the Younger (1533). This painting is world famous by its anamorphic perspective. It includes a distorted skull that the viewer can only see correctly while standing in a certain angle at the right side of the painting. Of course that nothing can substitute ones visit to the museum and the real life experience, but we must appreciate this great initiative of mu seums to allow us to be a virtual visitor in their galleries whenever we want.
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THE ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN SAKKOS

Ecclesiastical Garments Dating from the 15th to the 20th Centuries from the Holy Mountain of Athos
Collection Survey, Scientific Analysis and Preventive Conservation

Author: Christos Karydis Publisher: Archaeopress Pages: 410 pages with CDRom Publication date: 2010 ISBN: 9781407307169 Language: English The sakkos, traditional vestments worn by bishops of the Orthodox Church, are the object of study of a recent publication authored by Dr. Christos Karydis, specialist in textile conservation. The book is the result of the research of the EuroMediter ranean postByzantine ecclesiastical garments collection from the Mount Athos, Greece, the most important monastic centre of the Orthodoxy. The study includes an overall of 52 sakkoi from 14 monasteries, dating from the 15th to the 20th cen tury, which had never been studied before. The book offers one of the widest and most complete views on the sakkoi, from their cultural and historic significance to their material, stylistic analysis and conservation state assessment. The import ance of this book is even greater due to the lack of published literature dedicated to this subject. The garments were systematically studied by ana lytical techniques, namely Optical Microscopy, HPLC and SEMEDS, for the characterization of different materials such as fibres, dyes and metal threads, and for the identification of their degradation sources. The conservation of this collection is a
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major concern for the author who introduced a new preventive conservation approach for the care of the collection: the study begins with a dis cussion of the nomenclature, while it addresses the issue prevalent in Byzantine and postByzantine research, as to the historical provenance of this liturgical garment. Different approaches ranging from art historic and semiotic research to scientific examination using sophisticated analytical tech niques are applied, in order to introduce a cultural, historical and technological context of the garments. Dr. Christos Karydis is researcher and lecturer in preventive conservation and history of ecclesi astical textiles. He was involved in the protection of textiles collections from Mount Athos, Jerus alem, Constantinople, Colombia, Spain, UK and Greece. He is the author of the first book written in Greek on the preventive conservation of textiles. The recently published The Orthodox Christian Sakkos is a systematic study of great value not only to scholars but also to textile conservators and other museum professionals.
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The 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.

1st SAA Symposium

Date: March 30 April 3 Place: Sacramento, California, USA The Symposium focuses on recent, international advances in the use of pXRF and other portable, field technologies for archaeochemical studies of sites in the Americas. Below the surface of every landscape is chemical evidence of past human activity and, potentially, an historic site. Recent advances in the use of portable XRay Fluores cence (pXRF), RAMAN technologies and the reduction in costs for laboratory analyses have made these technolo gies affordable for field studies that "complete the circle of understanding" of historic era terrestrial and marine sites through the integration of archaeochemistry, Ar chaeogeophysics, literature research, oral interviews and excavation. Read more...

Tools for Prioritizing Collection Care Print March 2011

Date: March 22 Place: Birmingham, UK In all organisations, and especially in cash straitened times, priorities in collection care have to be established. Organisations have to choose what is most important to protect and make available to use and choose which pre servation actions will most effectively achieve their aim of longterm access to collections in libraries and archives. This event looks at a selection of tools used to establish the prio rities in collection care allowing participants to consider how the tools could be used in their own organisations. Read more...

Museums and the Web 2011 (MW2011) The international conference for culture and heritage online
Date: April 69 Read more...

Back to the Roots: Workshop on the Preparation of Historical Lake Pigments

Date: March 2325 Place: Munchen, Germany The workshop is aimed to promote a better un derstanding of the nature, preparation and use of historical lake pigments, which were relevant for painting and polychromy. The training will be targeted at conservatorrestorers, scientists and art historians who have a special interest in artist materials, and who wish to deepen their theoretical and practical knowledge of the traditional preparation of pigments made from natural dyestuffs. Read more...

Place: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Museums and the Web is an annual conference exploring the social, cultural, design, technological, economic, and organizational issues of culture, science and heritage online. Taking an international perspective, MW reviews and analyzes the issues and impacts of networked cultural, natural and scientific heritage wherever the network may reach. The MW community has been meeting since 1997, imagining, tracking, analyzing, and influencing the role museums play on the Web, and having fun doing it. MW Program features plenary sessions, parallel ses sions, unconference sessions, museum project demon strations, commercial exhibits, miniworkshops, profes sional forums, two design 'Crit Rooms', and the Best of the Web awards.

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April 2011

event

EVENTS

Wall Paintings Exposed to Outdoor Weathering April 2011

A Conservation Challenge at the World Heritage Site Constantine Basilica in Trier
Date: April 79 Place: Trier, Germany Read more...

ART '11: 10th International Conference on

Nondestructive Investigations and Micro analysis for the Diagnostics and Conservation of Cultural and Environmental Heritage
Date: April 1315 Place: Florence, Italy Non destructive analysis has proved to be the gold stand Read more...

Using the example of the Constantine Basilica in Trier, this conference wishes to present the current research results in order to compile the various difficulties in preserving outdoor wall paintings. This will be followed by presentations of other significant case studies and possible conservation solutions. On the second day, the major focus will be future methods of insitu conserva tion and the conveying of contents, while taking into consideration potentially conflicting interests of tourism, monument conservation and art science. The conference language is German (with translated abstracts).

ard to achieve more successful and longlasting preser vation. Many nondestructive techniques and evaluation methods applied in the natural sciences offer advantages to cultural heritage preservation. The synergy between experts will lead to the continuous development and adjustments of new scientific methods and their applic ation in the fields of preservation, reconstruction and diagnostics of museum and archeological objects. The conference will bring together, in one or the world art capitals, conservation scientists, curators, art histori ans, architectural researchers and experts in nonde structive evaluation and material analysis.

The Science of Objects and Collections The British Library Conservation Research Conference 2011
Date: April 11 Place: London, UK This one day conference will explore two linked themes: understanding the nature of objects, and understanding the nature of collections. What can we learn about the behaviour of whole collections by studying individual objects, and what can we learn about individual objects by studying whole collections? Topics to be covered in clude the use of spectroscopy and multispectral imaging to reveal more about the nature of objects, statistical methods for understanding the nature of collections, and the influences of the environment on collections. The full programme is available from the organiser's website. Read more...

Nondestructive and Microanalytical Techniques in Art and Cultural Heritage

Date: April 2629 Place: Berlin, Germany The aim of TECHNART 2011 is to provide a scientific forum to present and promote the use of analytical spectroscopy techniques in the field of cultural heritage. The confer ence builds on the momentum of TECHNART 2009 offering an outstanding and unique opportunity for exchanging knowledge on leading edge developments. Cultural herit age studies are interpreted in a broad sense, including pigments, stones, metals, glass, ceramics, chemometrics on artwork studies, resins, fibers, forensic applications in art history, archaeology and conservation science. The preliminary program will soon be available from the organiser's website. Read more...

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April 2011

AREAS OF PUBLISHING Conservation Treatment

Mural Painting Painting Stone Sculpture Textiles Paper / Documents Photography Metals Tile / Ceramic / Glass Furniture Music instruments Ethnographic assets Archeological objects

Conservation Science
Scientific research Material studies and characterisation Analytical techniques Technology development Biodeterioration Stateoftheart Reviews

Preventive Conservation
Theoretic principles 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:
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Case studies

Documentation in Conservation
Standardisation Documentation methods Data management

Conservation Theory
Ethics Conservation History www.econservationline.com

article

INFRARED REFLECTOGRAPHY USING 3D LASER SCANNING

By Christian Dietz, Gianluca Catanzariti and Alfredo Jimeno Martnez

SCIENCE AND RESTORATION AT THE SERVICE OF INTERPRETATION

A 3D laser scanning instrument, equipped with an optical transmitter containing a continuous 785 nm diode laser, was used in order to obtain infrared reflectography data of oil paintings. The investigation was carried out in two modern oil and acrylic paintings on canvas and a late 16th century panel painting. In the first case results were compared with existing documentation of the artistic process and in the second with a previously elaborated study by IR reflectography. Data recording took as short as five minutes, providing an IR image comparable to those obtained by reflectography in the IRA zone of the spectrum. The technique additionally provides high resolution topographic data of the artworks sur rounding, such as frame and adjacent walls, and has potential to be developed into an alternative method for investigation of pigment layers on virtually any surface, especially if these are of great dimensions or almost inaccessible.

Introduction Infrared radiation is situated within the electro magnetic spectrum just past the red segment of visible light and before the microwave region. Generally, the IR spectrum is divided into IRA (7001400 nm, nearinfrared), IRB (14003000 nm) and IRC (3000 nm 1 mm). Unlike visible light, infrared radiation penetrates somewhat in to the layers of a painting, depending upon the pigments, varnishes and other materials used during its execution. Backscattered light therefore contains information about deeper paint layers, underdrawings and canvas state. In particular, making visible the compositional sketches, nor mally done using charcoal and applied on the pre paration layer prior to the use of paint, but also signatures, dates, inscriptions or monograms hid den underneath the painted surface layer, provides to the professional valuable information that can help to assign authorship, track back the creational process and detect changes in the painter's ori ginal intentions (known as "pentimenti") [1]. The first attempts to exploit this technique for art and restoration purposes began in the 1930s, when suitable film material became commercially available. Infrared photography was limited to the real nearinfrared, a range approximately between 700 nm and 900 nm. Modern infrared reflectography
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(IRR), a commonly used and nondestructive tech nique for the investigation of ancient paintings, makes use of digital cameras, whose incorporated CCD sensors are inherently sensitive to infrared light, in that way images with a wavelength from 800 nm to 2000 nm may be obtained [2]. The instrumental setup of an investigation em ploying IRR is depicted in figure 1. The best contrast is obtained when opaque pig ments that are transparent for the infrared light, such as lead white, have been used in the painting. In this case, the infrared radiation passes through the pictorial film until it hits either a black carbon pigment of the underdrawing, where it is absorbed, or the adjacent ground layer, often made of white

Figure 1. A typical instrumental setup for IR reflectography. The red lines indicate infrared (IR) while the black lines indicate visible radiation (VIS).

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CHRISTIAN DIETZ, GIANLUCA CATANZARITI & ALFREDO JIMENO MARTNEZ

gesso (calcium sulphate), where it is backscattered. The result is a picture of black areas (absorbed light) over white background (reflected light). IRR is nowadays widely accepted and used as a valuable tool for the investigation of drawing con stituents [3], but can also be applied to obtain information on pigments on supports other than canvas or wood, such as mural [4] and cave paint ings [5]. Often, IRR recordings are overlaid to vis ible (VIS) measurements to produce false colour infrared composites, normally generated by plot ting the green parts of an image as blue, the red parts as green and the nearinfrared data as red, providing additional information on pigments, var nishes and binding media. Recent developments tend to use integrated approaches, such as com bining data obtained by IRR with thermography [6], Xray fluorescence or colourimetry [7]. A main drawback of IRR is the time consumption necessary for manually mounting many mosaic pictures, using dedicated software. This is partic ularly true for paintings of great dimension, where scaffolding has to be constructed for the investi gation in situ, because the camera has to be posi tioned relatively close to the artwork. Accurate xy translation of the painting on a plane perpendicu lar to the camera is also difficult due to geometrical and photometric distortions. Finally, a uniform illumination by the lamps is also not always easy to achieve. A wide range of laser techniques are nowadays commonly used for heritage applications [8]. Upon the laser power applied, they may be divided in three categories: (a) high power applications that may be considered somewhat destructive, normally using Nd:YAG lasers, such as laser ablation for diagnostic [9], cleaning purposes [10] or laser induced breakdown spectroscopy [11]; (b) others use moderate laser power but still high enough
34

to produce excited states of the investigated spe cies, such as Laser Induced Fluorescence [12] or Raman Spectroscopy [13]; (c) and on the low end of applied laser power, holographic interferometry [14] and laser scanning. Laser scanning is nowa days frequently used, typically for producing three dimensional models of historical sites [15] and caves [16], or to produce real time topographic data for documentation of excavations. The task of such instrument is to assign to each point reflecting a laser beam within its range of operation X, Y, Z coordinates, producing a so called point cloud, which is the raw data for subsequent modelling. This task can be achieved in two man ners. On one hand a pulsed laser can be employed, measuring the roundtrip time of the pulse (time offlight, TOF), which is the most widely used tech nique for long distance measurements (meters to kilometres). On the other hand, continuouswave lasers can emit at varying modulation lengths and detect the phaseshift of the reflected signal, from which the distance to the reflecting object can be calculated. When compared to the TOF technique, the phase shift technology considerably speeds up the registration. In our particular case, 120,000 points/second can be achieved with high accuracy, compared to about 4,000 points/second by TOF, although this technique is not appropriate for very long distance measurements such as air borne scanning. Modulated light also allows the scanner to ignore light from sources other than a laser, hence interference is substantially reduced. The scanner works by sending a light beam into the centre of a rotating mirror. As shown in fig ure 2, the mirror deflects the laser on a vertical rotation around the environment being scanned. After interacting with the object, the beam is re flected back into the mirror and the phase shift of the wave is measured. Using encoders to sim ultaneously record both the mirror rotation and
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INFRARED REFLECTOGRAPHY USING 3D LASER SCANNING

the horizontal rotation of the scanner, X, Y and Z coordinates of each point can be calculated. However, phase shift technology is more suscep tible to effects caused by phenomena other than total reflection of the incoming beam on the sur face to measure. This undesired effect is studied in the present work in order to obtain infrared data of painted artworks making use of a three dimensional laser scanner emitting at 785 nm and equipped with phase shift detection. Colour infor mation for each scanned data point was simultane ously obtained, making use of a digital camera coupled to the scan head of the instrument. Artworks Studies were carried out on three different paint ings. The first, an oil painting on cardboard covered with cotton, is a modern interpretation of Melozzo da Forl's "Musicmaking Angel", by A. Criado Por tal (2010). The second is an untitled work, painted in acrylic on canvas, showing geometrical forms with underlying drawing, made with charcoal. This painting was made in 2009 as a reference object for IRR studies at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Complutense University. The third dates to the late 16th or beginning of the 17th century and

Figure 2. Instrumental configuration for a laser scanner with phase shift () detection. Legend: 1 laser diode; 2 rotating mirror; 3 target; 4 photodiode; 5 reference oscillator and phasemeter.

shows Saint Mark the Evangelist together with his symbol, the lion. This painting, of unknown authorship, belongs to the church of Bujarrabal (Guadalajara, Spain) and is currently being re stored at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Complu tense University. It is painted on a wooden panel and attributed to the Castilian School. Figure 3 shows photographs of these paintings. Instrumental The 3D laser scanner used was a Faro Photon 80 with software Faros Scene V4.6 for scan control and data evaluation. Colour option was provided via a Nikon D300 digital camera with AF Fisheye

Figure 3. Studied artworks and their respective dimensions. From left to right: Music making Angel, 28x33 cm; Untitled, 38x46 cm; and Saint Mark the Evangelist, 65.5x89.5 cm.

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CHRISTIAN DIETZ, GIANLUCA CATANZARITI & ALFREDO JIMENO MARTNEZ

lenses (Nikkor de 10.5mm 1:2.8G ED), mounted in horizontal position above the scanning unit. In order to pinpoint the exact position of the art work under investigation with respect to the instru ment, first a 360 low resolution scan was carried out. Scans were then taken for selected areas in full resolution (0,009 vertical, 0,00076 hori zontal) at a recording speed of 120.000 points/ second. Finally, the camera was moved to the mirror position of the scanner and referenced optical images were taken. The instrumental setup used for IRR consisted in a Hamamatsu InGaAs camera (Mod. C1063323), providing high sensitivity in the wavelength range from 900 to 1700 nm. The camera was connected to a realtime monitor via the standard video out put. Connection to a PC went through a standalone video image processor (C274162), allowing shad ing correction, contrast enhancement, averaging, Ycorrection and edge extraction. For image capture, the paintings were illuminated using two 100 W halogen lamps. Results and Discussion The performance of the instrument matched the expectations, taking into account the rather li mited part of the IR spectrum under observation. In general, it can be observed that clear colours tend to gain transparency and the grey scale be comes uniform, revealing several details which have been corrected by the painter in the last stage of the work. In the picture of the angel, a white pearl, initially forming part of the ornamental headband worn by the angel, but finally over painted, can be clearly distinguished, as shown in figure 4. In the centre of the same figure, in the area just above the marked arrow, tracing details of the angels hairstyle which have also been slightly changed in the final version can be appreciated. The same applies to the eyebrow and horizontal
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Figure 4. Comparison of IR (left) and VIS (right) images. The arrow indicates a pearl which is not part of the final design.

diameter of the angels eye, which appear to have different angles and size, respectively, when com pared to the finished work. However, charcoal sketches drawn directly onto the support lack sufficient resolution and have to be more deduced than detected, as shown in figure 5, in the example of the untitled picture. In this case, the underdrawing shows a sitting man with head and beard, which can be clearly distinguished in the reflectography image. In con trast to that, the inner light and dark orange col oured geometrical figures of the original have not become completely transparent in the scanned image, in particular the darker one, superimpos ing the underlying drawings. This is not surprising as penetration depth of infrared radiation increases with growing wavelength. Obrutsky et al. presented a very illustrative example for this fact [17], where a picture showing a horse head was subsequently investigated in the visible, IRA, IRB and IRC region. The longer the wavelength, the clearer two horses in the background could be distinguished, which formed part of the original painting but were finally overpainted by the artist. Nonetheless, the first traces of the charcoal drawings, such as the lower border of the left arm and other features delimiting the figure, already appear using near infrared light, as shown at some details highlighted in figure 5A. Hence, it is desirable to dispose of alternative laser wavelengths, for example at 1400 nm and
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INFRARED REFLECTOGRAPHY USING 3D LASER SCANNING

Figure 5 (above). Detail of scanned (A) and IR reflectography (B) image on the untitled painting. In the first image, the upper circle contains a hat, the middle circle shows a right hand supporting the head, the lower circle has a left elbow, the oblique line shows a right arm, and the rectangle contains some horizontal lines. Figure 6 (below). Colour photography (A), scanned (B) and reflectography image (C) of the lion belonging to the painting of Saint Mark the Evangelist.

A B C
2200 nm, for which suitable laser diodes are avail able. Necessary changes within the laser head would be relatively easy to achieve, for instance by a movable mirror focusing light emitted by the additional diodes into the optical path of the ori ginal. From the detector side the issue is a bit more complicated, as the phasemeter has to be set to the changing wavelength, which possibly may be done by hardware changes and/or corresponding software correction algorithms.
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Taking into account the instruments current re striction to a specific wavelength in the real near infrared region (785 nm), the gained information is still highly valuable, although not as complete as an IRR image, which covers the whole infrared region. This may be highlighted with a comparison of scan and IRR data obtained from the painting of Saint Mark the Evangelist. The underlying sketches,
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CHRISTIAN DIETZ, GIANLUCA CATANZARITI & ALFREDO JIMENO MARTNEZ

probably done in oil paint rather than charcoal, reflect almost entirely the final composition of the painting, outlining the figures and landscape which were later on filled with colour. Looking into the reflectography data, this becomes par ticularly evident in zones like the hand of the saint holding the paint brush and the clothing he wears (data not shown). As it can be seen in figure 6, showing a detail of the lion, Saint Marks symbol, situated in the lower left corner of the panel, generally the more profound paint layers, such as traces of the forehead of the animal, can be distinguished more clearly making use of the IRR image. In turn, details of the superficial paint layers, such as the final touches to improve the appearance of the eyes, can be more clearly ap preciated in the near infrared zone, correspond ing to the scanned image, as shown in figure 7. The ultimate compositional features, such as li ons beard, can be confirmed by both methods, as the last paint layers are the first to become transparent using infrared light. The only problem encountered during data record ing is the total reflection of the IR beam, occur ring to a certain amount when hitting the painting close to the right angle, causing plain white zones in the image. To overcome this, the artwork has to be situated slightly above or below the optical path of the scan head. The laser scanner used splits the beam into 3 com ponent parts, operating on 3 different modula tion lengths, providing an accuracy of 0.58 mm within the specific range of the measured target, with a vertical and horizontal resolution of 0.009 and 0.00076, respectively. These can be considered to be very good values for a middle range scanner, nonetheless not enough to reveal very fine details of a paintings topography, such as brush strokes. Furthermore, an additional imprecision is intro
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Figure 7. Detail of the lions right eye obtained by scanned image (left) and IR reflectography (right).

duced just by the fact that the used IR radiation penetrates into the investigated surface. Nonethe less, a high resolution 3D model of components such as the frame or, in case the artwork is in vestigated in its original location (e.g. church, cathedral, castle) the paintings adjacent sur rounding, as well as topographic data in case of cave paintings, can be easily obtained from the point clouds recorded during scanning. A final issue which may be discussed here is the total amount of radiation to which the painting has to be exposed during the analysis. It is well known that incident light causes ageing processes in pigments and binding media, reason for which preservation of artworks, in particular old and highly valuable pieces always require the limita tion of light exposure to a minimum. The measure of the total power of electromagnetic radiation landing on a particular surface, including infrared, ultraviolet, and visible light, is defined as irradiance, a quantity for which the SI unit is Watt per square meter. The exact calculation of this value for a given light source is not an easy task, but with some simplifications one may get a good estimate of its dimension. Assuming that the source is emitting at a particular wavelength, that neither absorption nor refraction of light oc curs in the medium and that the magnetic suscep tibility is negligible, irradiance simply decreases with the square of the distance from the source. This is because the overall power is constant but the illuminated area grows squared with distance.
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INFRARED REFLECTOGRAPHY USING 3D LASER SCANNING

In the case of a directional laser beam, the problem is that the radiation does not distribute uniformly in all directions. During scanning, most of the time a given point at the surface does not receive any energy at all, but a high energy over a short frac tion of time, resulting in a low average irradiation but with punctual higher values. The average ra diant emittance value for an object situated at a given distance from the scanner may hence be calculated as: I P / 4 d2 where P is the power of the light source and d the distance. In our particular case the laser power is 22 mW and the distance to the artwork was set to about two meters, obtaining an irradiance value of 0.44 mW/m2. For calculation of short term ex posure, we have to use the laser beam diameter, which is, following the manufacturer specifications, a circular spot of about 3 mm diameter at exit. Here we calculate an irradiance of more than 3000 mW/m2, which is a bit more than the double of sun light intensity. This peak value will be achieved for the spot area over which the beam passes no longer than the maximum pulse duration of the laser, which is at full resolution 0.0076 seconds only and de creases proportionally with the resolution. Tungsten halogen incandescent lamps, as those commonly employed for illumination in IRR, are thermal radiators, which means that light is gener ated by heating a solid filament to high tempera tures. Assuming that the spectral power distribu tion roughly follows that of a blackbody radiator, up to 85 percent of the emitted energy lies in the infrared region of the spectrum, another 1520 percent falls into the visible and about 1 percent into the ultraviolet wavelengths. The total radi ation follows a fourth power law with respect to the tungsten wire temperature, which means that increasing temperature shifts the spectral distri
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bution into the visible region of the spectrum, the area under the resulting bell shaped curve rep resents the total irradiance. Under ideal conditions and for the aforementioned distance, for a 100 W halogen bulb we would achieve an irradiance of 2000 mW/m2 for the total incident electromagnetic radiation, spanning the wave length region between 200 and 3000 nanometres. Though heat dissipation in air would considerably diminish the real irradiance in the example, in practice these lamps have to be situated much closer to the artwork when taking reflectography images, while the scanner may be placed as far as ten meters from the object without losing much of resolution. Furthermore, one has to consider that the spectrum emitted by incandescent lamps has a considerable amount of light with wave lengths shorter than infrared, which in general is considered to cause more damage to the artwork. This is particularly true for darkening of yellow pig ments such as chrome yellow [18], where exposure to UVlight causes superficial reduction of the origi nal Cr(VI) to Cr(III). Possibly the most important factor when comparing both techniques is the total exposure time to light, ranging from tenths of minutes for taking mosaic pictures in IRR to the duration of a laser pulse when making use of scan ning technology. Hence, peak values are in the same order of mag nitude for this given example, but for total irra diance, the values obtained for the scanner are about three orders of magnitude lower. Conclusions A direct comparison of infrared reflectography versus a 3D laser scanning device for investiga tion of artworks revealed that both provide com parable information in the nearinfrared region. For the mid and farinfrared regions, revealing information of deeper paint layers such as the un
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CHRISTIAN DIETZ, GIANLUCA CATANZARITI & ALFREDO JIMENO MARTNEZ

derdrawing, IRR appears to be the more suitable method, since the laser diodes emission is limited to a well defined wavelength in the NIR zone. Nonetheless, the scanning technology provides several advantages over classical IRR as coloured and fully measurable 2 or 3D models can be achieved within minutes, even though further modelling, for instance surface topographic analysis and rep resentation, requires additional manpower and computing time. False colour IR pictures are also available, using scan data postprocessing in dedicated software. The technique is especially suitable for paintings of great dimensions and with difficult accessibility, as it can be operated from a considerable distance to the object and does not require mounting additional structures, such as a scaffold. Peak values of light irradiation may be considered to be in the same order of magnitude for both techniques, but much longer exposure times are necessary in case of incandescent lamps, which contrary to the laser, emit a considerable portion of more energetic and hence more harmful light. On the other hand, the overall irradiance for the laser technique is orders of magnitude lower. The technique has clearly shown potential to be developed into a competitive instrument with re spect to IRR. This could be relatively easy to achieve by the incorporation of laser diodes emitting in the mid and farinfrared region into the laser head and the corresponding soft and hardware changes on the detector side. Acknowledgments We would like to thank Consuelo Dalmau and Silvia Garca FernndezVilla, from the Department of Painting and Restoration of the Faculty of Fine Arts, Complutense University, for facilitating the
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access to most of the investigated artworks and helping with the reflectography raw data. Antonio Criado Portal is gratefully acknowledged for pro viding original artwork and the corresponding doc umentation of the creation process. Thanks to Val entn Garcia Baonza for the fruitful discussions and advice regarding infrared emitting laser systems. References [1] F. Casadio, and L. Toniolo, The analysis of polychrome works of art: 40 years of infrared spectroscopic investigations, Journal of Cultural Heritage 2(1), 2001, pp. 7178, doi:10.1016/ S12962074(01)011074, URL [2] D. Saunders, R. Billinge, J. Cupitt, N. Atkinson, and H. Liang, A New Camera for HighResolution Infrared Imaging of Works of Art, Studies in Con servation 51, 2006, pp. 277290 [3] M. Attas, E. Cloutis, C. Collins, D. Goltz, C. Majzels, J.R. Mansfield, and H.H. Mantsch, Near infrared spectroscopic imaging in art conservation: investigation of drawing constituents, Journal of Cultural Heritage 4(2), 2003, pp. 127136, doi:10.1016/S12962074(03)000244, URL [4] F. Ospitali, A. Rattazzi, M.P. Colombini, A. Andreotti, and G. di Lonardo, XVI century wall paintings in the Messer Filippo cell of the tower of Spilamberto: Microanalyses and monitoring, Journal of Cultural Heritage 8(3), 2007, pp. 323 327, doi:10.1016/j.culher.2007.02.004, URL (available at URL [pdf]) [5] G. Verhoeven, Imaging the invisible using modified digital still cameras for straightforward and lowcost archaeological nearinfrared pho tography, Journal of Archaeological Science 35(12), 2008, pp. 30873100, doi:10.1016/ j.jas.2008.06.012, URL
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[6] D. Ambrosini, C. Daffara, R. Di Biase, D. Paoletti, L. Pezzati, R. Bellucci, and F. Bettini, Integrated reflectography and thermography for wooden paintings diagnostics, Journal of Cultural Heritage 11(2), 2010, pp. 196204, doi:10.1016/j.culher. 2009.05.001, URL [7] A.C. Felici, G. Fronterotta, M. Piacentini, C. Ni colais, S. Sciuti, M. Vendittelli, and C. Vazio, The wall paintings in the former Refectory of the Trinit dei Monti convent in Rome: relating observations from restoration and archaeometric analyses to Andrea Pozzos own treatise on the art of mural painting, Journal of Cultural Heritage 5(1), 2004, pp. 1725, doi:10.1016/j.culher.2003. 07.001, URL [8] M. T. DomnechCarb, Novel analytical meth ods for characterising binding media and protec tive coatings in artworks, Analytica Chimica Acta 621(2), 2008, pp. 109139, doi:10.1016/j.aca. 2008.05.056, URL [9] B. Giussani, D. Monticelli, and L. Rampazzi, Role of laser ablationinductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry in cultural heritage research: A review, Analytica Chimica Acta 635(1), 2009, pp. 621, doi:10.1016/j.aca.2008.12.040, URL [10] A.V. Rode, K.G.H. Baldwin, A. Wain, N.R. Mad sen, D. Freeman, Ph. Delaporte, and B. Luther Davies, Ultrafast laser ablation for restoration of heritage objects, Applied Surface Science 254(10), 2008, pp. 31373146, doi:10.1016/ j.apsusc.2007.10.106, URL [11] M. Brai, G. Gennaro, T. Schillaci, and L. Tran chita, Double pulse laser induced breakdown spectroscopy applied to natural and artificial materials from cultural heritages: A comparison with microXray fluorescence analysis, Spectro chimica Acta B 64(10), 2009, pp. 11191127, doi:10.1016/j.sab.2009.07.027, URL [12] V. Raimondi, G. Cecchi, D. Lognoli, L. Palombi,
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R. Grnlund, A. Johansson, S. Svanberg, K. Barup, and J. Hllstrm, The fluorescence lidar tech nique for the remote sensing of photoautotrophic biodeteriogens in the outdoor cultural heritage: A decade of in situ experiments, International Biodeterioration & Biodegradation 63(7), 2009, pp. 823835, doi:10.1016/j.ibiod.2009.03.006, URL [13] D. Creagh, A. Lee, V. OtienoAlego, and M. Kubik, Recent and future developments in the use of radiation for the study of objects of cultural heritage significance, Radiation Physics and Chemistry 78(6), 2009, pp. 367374, doi:10.1016/ j.radphyschem.2009.03.005, URL [14] V. Tornari, "Laser interferencebased tech niques and applications in structural inspection of works of art", Analytical and Bioanalytical Chem istry 387(3), 2007, pp. 761780, doi: 10.1007/ s0021600609744, URL [15] P. Martn Lerones, J. Llamas Fernndez, . Melero Gil, J. GmezGarcaBermejo, and E. Za lama Casanova, A practical approach to making accurate 3D layouts of interesting cultural herit age sites through digital models, Journal of Cul tural Heritage 11(1), 2010, pp. 19, doi:10.1016/ j.culher.2009.02.007, URL [16] J. Luis Lerma, S. Navarro, M. Cabrelles, and V. Villaverde, Terrestrial laser scanning and close range photogrammetry for 3D archaeological documentation: the Upper Palaeolithic Cave of Parpall as a case study, Journal of Archaeolo gical Science 37(3), 2010, pp. 499507, doi:10. 1016/ j.jas.2009.10.011, URL [17] A.E. Obrutsky and D. Acosta, Infrared reflec tography, an NDT technique for images diagnosis, presented at the 3rd Pan American Conference for Nondestructive Testing PANNDT, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 26, 2003 (available in Spanish at URL [pdf])
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[18] L. Monico, G. Van der Snickt, K. Janssens, W. De Nolf, C. Miliani, J. Dik, M. Radepont, E. Hendriks, M. Geldof, M. Cottez, "Degradation Process of Lead Chromate in Paintings by Vincent van Gogh Studied by Means of Synchrotron Xray Spectromicroscopy and Related Methods. 2. Original Paint Layer Sam ples", Analytical Chemistry 83, 2011, pp. 1224 1231, doi:10.1021/ac1025122, URL

At the same time he is employed as technician at the universities Centre for Archaeometry and Archae ological Analysis, where is is mainly devoted to geophysical prospection methods such as ground penetrating radar, a field where he also holds years of experience at an Italy based private company. Further, he is a specialist in archaeomagnetic dating techniques and was actively involved in the establishment of the paleosecular calibration curve for the Spanish Peninsula.

CHRISTIAN DIETZ
Contact: cdietz@quim.ucm.es

ALFREDO JIMENO MARTNEZ

Christian Dietz received his MSc from Technische Hochschule Darmstadt in 1995. Then he moved to Complutense University of Madrid, where he obtained his PhD in Chemistry in 2001. The fol lowing 7 years of investigation, at the Department of Analytical Chemistry, were mainly devoted to instrumental and method development in metal speciation analysis, with a special focus on sample treatment, but as well bioenvironmental studies in general and waste water management in par ticular. In 2008 he was involved in the establish ment of the Centre for Archaeometry and Archae ological Analysis at the Complutense University of Madrid, where he currently works dedicated to instrumental analysis and dating of a wide range of archaeological artefacts. He also covers non invasive survey techniques in archaeology such as geophysical prospections and laser scanning. Contact: aljimen@ghis.ucm.es Alfredo Jimeno received his higher education in History and Archaeology at the University of Zar agoza, where he obtained his PhD in 1981. His teaching and research activities started in 1976 at the College of Soria (University of Zaragoza), moving to the Complutense University of Madrid in 1986. He was appointed Director of the Centre for Archaeometry and Archaeological Analysis at the same university in 2007. His extensive research activities, embodied in a dozen books and over 150 articles, focus on the early history of the Spanish Central Plateau, covering the Bronze Age, Iron Age and the Romanization. His work at international level is reflected in the joint management of dif ferent projects on "The origin of food production in the Blue Nile area, as a member of the Archae ological Mission of the Complutense University in Sudan (19881999) and he is correspondent of the German Archaeological Institute. Currently, he is a member of the Scientific Committee of Duques de Soria foundation and of the Editorial Board of the U.C.M. Complutum magazine. In 2005 he was appointed Commissioner for the International Exhibition "Celtiberians, organised by the Junta de Castilla y Len, entity which also named him director of the site management plan for Numancia (1994present).
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GIANLUCA CATANZARITI
Contact: gcatanza@fis.ucm.es Gianluca Catanzariti received his MsC in Geolo gical Science from the Universit degli Studi di Torino (Italy) in 1999. Currently he is working on his PhD thesis centred on archaeomagnetic meas urements at the Faculty of Physics, Dpt. of Earth Sciences at the Complutense University of Madrid.
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A REFLECTION ON THE PREVENTIVE CONSERVATION OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL WOOD AND THE EFFECTS OF MASS TOURISM
The Case Study of the Vasa Warship

By Cristina CabelloBriones

CRISTINA CABELLOBRIONES

Archaeological wood is an organic material, sensitive to environmental conditions. Wood, even when treated with polyethylene glycols, adapts to the surrounding environment with physical and chemical reactions that may be detrimental to its preservation. In addition, excessive tourism has a negative effect on the museum environment once its indoor conditions fluctuate directly with the number of visitors. In order to minimize the effects of a negative climate caused by mass tourism on archaeological wood collections, preventive conservation measures should be taken. To illustrate an effective preventive conservation management, the case of the Vasa museum in Stockholm, which houses the 386 years old Vasa warship, is discussed.

Introduction Tourism is and must be acceptable for any museum. However, largescale tourism has a direct nega tive effect on collections such as that of the Vasa Museum. Although it is clear that environmental conditions affect archaeological wood, preventive conservation of such collections has not been ex tensively considered. Wooden shipwrecks have been studied from several perspectives mainly in research that refers to material degradation and new treatments. The main objective of this article is to raise public awareness of this topic and high light the benefits of a well planned preventive conservation strategy in order to safeguard ar chaeological wooden cultural artefacts. Before analysing the example of the Vasa Museum, a brief description of the effects of environment and tourism on archaeological wood and an in troduction to preventive conservation manage ment are presented. Preventive Conservation of Archaeological Wood Wood equilibrates with its environment. If the sur rounding conditions change, wood reacts to the abundance or absence of moisture in the air and will expand or contract. Thomson [1] recommen ded 1924 C and 4555% RH as ideal conditions for the museum environment housing unpainted wooden objects. At lower RH values, wood cracks, becomes brittle and shrinks. Above 65% RH, mold
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growth is promoted and swelling increases. Main taining the relative humidity between 5060% reduces most of the visible damage. However, Mi chalski [2] reminds us that "the specifications for temperature and humidity in related literature rep resent the lowest common denominator amongst the needs of objects, and not necessarily the op timum for each". Each case needs to be analysed individually and on many occasions this means testing the decisions in practice. When an object is mechanically stable, most dam age is due to RH fluctuations. These can eventu ally lead to cracking, checking and warping of the wooden artefact. In addition, fast changes in rel ative humidity cause internal stresses due to dif ferences of moisture between inner and outer areas [3, p. 34]. Therefore, an ideal environment is achieved when no cyclic variations occur. Slight shifts are permitted if the change is slow, varying at maximum over 5% range [4, p. 269]. Relating to temperature, every 10 C increase doubles the average rate of organic reactions [3, p. 40]. Therefore, lower temperature levels (15 20 C) slow these rates and offer a comfortable environment to visitors. Light affects wood in several ways. The most severe damages are connected with chemical bond break age, free radical formation and the subsequent depolymerisation of polymers. In addition, wood
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PREVENTIVE CONSERVATION OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL WOOD

that has been exposed to the visible and ultra violet wavelengths radiation of daylight under goes colour change [5]. Experts agree on a range between 300 and 50 lux as appropriate for safe display, although lighting between 200 and 50 lux should be used for severely deteriorated objects considering that 50 lux is the minimum level re quired for colour perception and adequate visi bility [4, p. 268]. Treatment with polyethylene glycol (PEG) has be come the most common application for the pre servation of many kinds of waterlogged wooden remains. The technique involves the impregnation of wood with PEG solutions so that the water in the cell walls is replaced by the preservative. The pro cess is focused on the stabilisation of the timbers dimensions and bulking of the wood structure. Highly degraded wood treated with PEG changes its dimension regularly according to the relative humidity though its range of change is smaller than that of sound wood [6]. For wood treated with any molecular weight of PEG, unless it is con tinually recoated, exposure to high RH (higher than 60%) will make the surface sticky and could leach out the impregnant [7]. In addition, PEG is hygroscopic and transports ions and dissolved oxygen within the treated wood when there are humidity fluctuations causing both physical and chemical problems [8]. Impact of Largescale Tourism on the Cultural Heritage Tourism affects tangible heritage in several and diverse ways: visitors release heat, water vapour and carbon dioxide; they transport external par ticles and the accumulation of dust can lead to further cleaning that may damage surfaces; they also generate turbulence, which increases the deposition rate of particulate matter [9, pp. 127
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140]. In addition, a large number of people visit museums on rainy days and their wet coats intro duce additional moisture. Although it is difficult to differentiate between in door environmental variations caused by visitors and the effects of outdoor climate, it is clear that the way tourism in museums is organised nowadays has a direct connexion with environmental fluctu ations. An adult releases approximately 60 grams of water vapour per hour and 60 watts per square metre of body surface as heat [10, p. 20], affecting ambient relative humidity. Negative environmental condition cycles are related to successive waves of tourists who access the museum. For example, measurements in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna during and after the Bruegel exhibition in 1998 showed an increase in heat and moisture directly caused by the tourism flows [9, p. 132]. To avoid the collection itself and/or the building acting as buffer elements, environmental control systems must cope with these sudden stresses, maintaining a constant climate during and after the visiting hours. Preventive Conservation Management Although largescale visitor access involves risk for cultural objects, the public is necessary to keep a museum open. A large number of visitors increases the prestige of a museum and ensures funding as demonstrated by the Delphi survey of owners and managers of historic properties across the United Kingdom [11]. The survey shows that the highest ranked criterion for priority in fund ing is related to the significance of the heritage. This is measured through its uniqueness and rel evance for the community as well as its public appeal. However, pressures imposed by visitors are not considered to be a major criterion for de termining conservation funding.
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Mass tourism is an economic resource and in the context of indoor climate, the key is to achieve the right balance between the increasing demand for access and the need to protect the cultural herit age itself. Different measures can be carried out to reduce the impact of tourism. Not including the cultural object/site in promotional material could reduce the awareness of the attraction [12]. Another solution could be to display the most valuable objects of a collection in showcases or substitute them with replicas. However, display cases are not always the best conservation solution [13] and ethical issues as authenticity, provenance and context could arise [14]. According to Young and Cassar [15], the type of measure depends on the uniqueness and vulnerability of the cultural artefact, its local or international importance, the ability to make facsimiles, the rate of degrada tion from environmental conditions and the quality of the protective environment.

In these days of rising cost and lack of funding, preventive conservation management is the best option. According to Cassars definition, preventive conservation management is the creation and maintenance of an environment that limits the decay of museum objects to the absolute minimum consistent with public access [10, p. 3]. A pre servation plan allows the analysis of deteriorating environmental conditions caused by the influx of tourist and developing a strategy to protect the cultural artefacts. Additionally, environmental monitoring is a reliable source of information that can be used to assess risks and understand dam ages and impacts. Case Study: Preventive Conservation of the Vasa Warship The Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus ordered the Vasa (figure 1) to be built in 1625 due to the Thirty Years' War. Although a number of different tree species were used in the Vasa, 90% of the weight

Figure 1. The Vasa warship. Photo by Anneli Karlsson, the Swedish National Maritime Museums, All rights reserved.

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PREVENTIVE CONSERVATION OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL WOOD

Figure 2. Stern view of the Vasa warship. Photo by Karolina Kristensson, the Swedish National Maritime Museums, All rights reserved.
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of the hull is oak. The ship sank, fully equipped, on its maiden voyage out of Stockholm harbour in 1628, and was raised to the surface in 1961. On the salvage, the timbers were found to be in re markably good state (figure 2). The main reasons were the absence of marine borers, fungi and rot due to the near oxygenfree conditions in the wa ter and high concentration of hydrogen sulphide. However, the surface of the timbers was attacked by cellulosedegrading and sulphurmetabolizing microorganisms. After salvage, exposure to atmo spheric oxygen initiated a multitude of chemical reactions threatening the longterm preserva tion of the ship such as oxidation of sulphur to sulphuric acid, redox reactions of sulphur and iron compounds from bolts and cargo made of iron, free radical reactions, acid hydrolysis and oxidative degradation reactions of cellulose. The conservation with PEG 1500 and 600 between 1962

and 1979 was followed by an air drying process for another ten years1. According to Emma Hocker [16, p. 4], conservator at the Vasa Museum, the control of the indoor environment has been a challenge, especially due to the increasing public. The museum was designed as a display case for the ship (figure 3) with an internal airspace of about 105000 m3. The original predictions of 600 000 visitors per year have steadily increased until numbers reached 1.2 million visitors in 2008. The main reasons are its value as source of information of a specific con text and timeframe, but also the museum market

1 More detailed information can be found on the website of

the Vasa Museum website at: http:// www.vasamuseet.se/ en/PreservationResearch/

Figure 3. General view of the Vasa Museum. Photo by ke E:son Lindman, All rights reserved.

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PREVENTIVE CONSERVATION OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL WOOD

ing strategy and the rise in the number of cruises with Stockholm as a destination. The museum former climate specifications were set at 60% RH and 20 C for summer months, and 57.5% RH and 17 C in winter to avoid condensa tion in the museum walls [17], equivalent to wood moisture content of 1012%. Although this system was sufficient for the winter months [18, p. 171] when there were relatively few visitors, during warm and wet summers, the RH rose to over 65%. Temperature and RH gradients caused by the build ing height [16, p. 5] were accepted as inevitable but at lower levels [19] the RH at times reached 70% impacting the movement of the wood. The climate system was underdimensioned. After a record number of visitors during the rainy summer of 2000, salt outbreaks were drawn to the surface. Hydrated PEG could have dissolved salts [20] from the material at high RH and these salts could have precipitated on the wood surface when the PEG was dehydrated at low RH. In addition, large fluctuations were recorded near the entrance to the museum shop and restaurant, where un conditioned air could enter without control, and in the viewing galleries at the stern, where stronger lighting and visitors were concentrated [16, pp. 5 6]. It was then decided to reduce the RH from 60% to 55% 4% and the yearround temperature to 18.5 1.5C, equivalent to 10% moisture content in the wood [16, p. 6]. In 2004, a new climate system with increased ca pacity and sensitivity was installed in the ship hall (figure 4). The principle is based on conditioned air pumped in at low levels, rising around the ship and sucked out through a duct near the ceiling [18, p. 173] providing a protective curtain around the ship. In addition, the visitor counter at the museum entrance was incorporated into the steer ing parameters. This measure allows preparation
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Figure 4. Current climatecontrol system above the ship stern. Photo by Karolina Kristensson, All rights reserved.

by dehumidifying in advance when potential risks are detected [16, p. 7]. Also a new energyeffect ive halogenbased lighting system was installed producing 30% less radiant heat [21]. Since installation, the hall climate has stabilised considerably despite the greater number of visit ors and the outdoor climate (figures 5 and 6). Out breaks are not worsening either in coverage or pH value and the almost 10% RH gradient over the height of the ship was halved immediately [16, p. 7].

Figure 5. Thermohygrograph chart of the Vasa generated from the climatecontrol system data at the Vasa Museum between the 16th of June and the 21st of September 2003. The environ mental fluctuations were remarkable. Source: the Swedish Na tional Maritime Museums, All rights reserved.

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Figure 6. Thermohygrograph chart of the Vasa generated from the climatecontrol system data at the Vasa Museum from the 16th of June to the 21st of September 2009. RH and temperature fluctuations were minimized. Source: the Swedish National Maritime Museums, All rights reserved.

However, this system could operate at maximum capacity if the museum gives in to the pressure of the long queues of visitors in peak season and allows more public at one time. Then, a stable cli mate could not be guaranteed [16, pp. 89]. Conclusions Ships that have been rescued from the sea are among the most popular attractions worldwide, making maritime museums highly profitable. The great popularity of these museums ensures continued funding for research, conservation, acquisition and promotes cultural tourism. How ever, it also increases the pressure to allow greater numbers of visitors, making it difficult to maintain a suitable preventive conservation programme. Largescale tourism has a direct negative effect on museum indoor climate environments. It pri marily affects relative humidity causing rapid fluctuations in short periods of time. Variations in moisture enable the migration of water, dis solved oxygen and salts into the PEG and wood, and will initiate different chemical reactions.
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The general concern nowadays is that the control of relative humidity and temperature is the most feasible preventive conservation measure in mu seums with archaeological collections and high tourism. Stabilizing the environment, avoiding damaging extremes and fluctuations and main taining the relative humidity low (around 55%) will help preserve PEG treated marine wooden artefacts [22]. Every museum should develop an environmental management programme, a carefully elaborated longterm maintenance plan. This could include technical aspects, such as dealing with monitor ing and controlling of the museum environment, and organisational issues, such as a visitor man agement plan. Acknowledgments I wish to acknowledge the Vasa Museum. Special thanks to Emma Hocker for generously giving me part of her time to share her experience and know ledge.

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References
[1] G. Thomson, The Museum Environment, Butter worths, London, 1981, p. 85 [2] S. Michalski, Temperature and Relative Humidity: the definition of correct/incorrect values, in S. Michalski (ed.), A Systematic Approach to the Con servation (Care) of Museum Collections, Canadian Conservation Institute, Ottawa, Ontario, 1992, ap pendix D, p. 2 [3] B. Appelbaum, Guide to Environmental Protec tion of Collections, Sound View Press, Boston, 1991 [4] V. Jessen and C. Pearson, Environmental con ditions for storage and display of marine finds, in C. Pearson (ed.), Conservation of Marine Ar chaeological Objects, Butterworths, London, 1987 [5] R. Harvey and C. Freedland, Exhibition and Storage of Archaeological wood, in R. M. Rowell and R. J. Barbour (eds.), Archaeological Wood: Prop erties, Chemistry, and Preservation, American Chem ical Society, Washington, 1990, p. 407, Chapter DOI: 10.1021/ba19900225.ch015, URL [6] T. Nishiura and S. Imazu, Experimental study on the dimensional change of highly degraded wa terlogged wood according to ambient humidity after preservation treatment, in P. Hoffmann (ed.), Pro ceedings of the 4th ICOM Group on Wet Archaeological Materials Conference, Bremerhaven, 1990, ICOM, Bremerhaven, 1991, p. 117 [7] D. W. Grattan, A Practical Comparative Study of Treatments for Waterlogged Wood. Part II: The Effect of Humidity on Treated Wood, in D. W. Grattan (ed.), Proceedings of the ICOM Waterlogged Wood Working Group Conference, 1518th September, 1981, Cana dian Conservation Institute, Ottawa, ICOM Com
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mittee for Conservation, Waterlogged Wood Work ing Group, 1982, p. 250 [8] M. Sandstrm, Y. Fors, and I. Persson, "The Vasa's New Battle. Sulphur, Acid and Iron", Vasa Studies 19, The Vasa Museum, Stockholm, 2003, p. 21 [9] D. Camuffo, R. Van Grieken, H.J. Busse, G. Sturaro, A. Valentino, A. Bernardi, N. Blades, D. Shooter, K. Gysels, F. Deutsch, M. Wieser, O. Kim and U. Ulrych, Environmental monitoring in four European museums, Atmospheric Environment 35, Supplement No. 1, 2001, doi:10.1016/S13522310 (01)000887 URL , also available at URL [pdf] [10] M. Cassar, Environmental Management: guide lines for museums and galleries, Museums & Galleries Commission with Routledge, London, 1995 [11] B. Garrod and A. Fyall, Managing Heritage Tourism, Annals of Tourism Research 27(3), 2000, pp. 682708, doi: 10.1016/S01607383(99)000948, URL [12] M. Drdcky, T. Drdcky, D. Creighton, Impact of Cultural Tourism upon the Diversity of Built Her itage, position paper of the PICTURE project Pro active management of the Impact of Cultural Tourism upon Urban Resources and Economies, 2007, avail able at URL [pdf] (accessed November 2010) [13] D. Camuffo, G. Sturaro, and A. Valentino, Showcases: a really effective mean for protecting artworks?, Thermochimica Acta 365(12), 2000, pp. 6577, doi:10.1016/S00406031(00)006146, URL [14] M. Cassar, P. Brimblecombe, T. Nixon, C. Price, C. Sabbioni, C. Saiz Jimenez, and K. Van Balen, Technological requirements for solutions in the con
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servation and protection of historic monuments and archaeological remains, European Parliament, Kirch berg, Luxembourg, 2001, p. 43, available at URL [pdf] (accessed July 2010) [15] A. Young and M. Cassar, Indoor Climate and Tourism Effects a UK perspective, in M. Drdck (ed.), European Research on Cultural Heritage, State oftheArt Studies, Vol. 2, ITAM 2004, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, 2004, pp. 405412, available at URL [pdf] (accessed August 2010) [16] E. Hocker, Maintaining a Stable Environment: Vasas New Climate Control System, Journal of Preservation Technology 41(23), 2010, available at URL [pdf] (accessed August 2010) [17] B. Hfords, The climate of the Vasa Museum problems in coordinating the museum object and the museum climate, 1997, available at URL (ac cessed July 2010) [18] I. Hall Roth and L. Malmberg, Save the Vasa An Introduction, in P. Hoffmann, J. A. Spriggs, K. Strtkvern and D. Gregory (eds.) Proceedings of the 9th ICOM Group on Wet Archaeological Materials Conference, Bremerhaven, 2005, ICOM, 2005 [19] E. Hocker, L. Dal, and F. Hocker, Understand ing Vasas Salt Problem: Documenting the Distribu tion of Salt Precipitations on the Swedish Warship Vasa, in Proceedings of the 10th ICOM Group on Wet Organic Archaeological Materials Conference, Bremer haven, 2008: ICOM/RACM, Amersfoort, 2009, p. 479 [20] M.N. Mortensen, H. Egsgaard, S. Hvilsted, Y. Shashoua and J. Glastrup, Characterisation of the polyethylene glycol impregnation of the Swedish warship Vasa and one of the Danish Skuldelev Viking ships, Journal of Archaeological Science 34(8), 2007, p. 1217, doi:10.1016/j.jas.2006.10.012, URL
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[21] Personal communication with Emma Hocker, July 2010 [22] Y. Fors, SulfurRelated Conservation Concerns for Marine Archaeological Wood. The Origin, Spe cification and Distribution of Accumulated sulfur with some Remedies for the Vasa, Doctoral Thesis, Department of Physical, Inorganic and Structural Chemistry, Stockholm University, 2008, p. 94

CRISTINA CABELLOBRIONES
Conservator

Cristina CabelloBriones is a recent postgraduate in Preventive Conservation at Northumbria Uni versity (Newcastle, UK). Her dissertation, assessed with distinction, was about Preventive Conserva tion of Wooden WreckHulls Retrieved from Un derwater Maritime Environments. She is a first class graduate in the Conservation and Restora tion of Cultural Heritage from the Escuela Superi or de Conservacin y Restauracin de Bienes Cul turales de Madrid (Spain), speciality in paintings, where she studied between 2002 and 2005. In 2008, she completed her second first class BA degree in the History of Art at the Universidad Autnoma de Madrid (Spain). Her dissertation was about Historic Restorations of the Roma nesque Mural Paintings at the National Museum in Catalonia. She has recently been awarded with La Caixa Schol arship to study a PhD in Conservation in the United Kingdom commencing in 2011. Her most recent projects include the research of the improvements to the Tate Gallerys transit frame wrapping system in order to save on ma terials, time and handling of long term collec tion care and the internship at the Reina Sofa Museum (Madrid, Spain) assessing the risks for cultural artefacts during mounting of exhibitions.
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THE USE OF GROUND PENETRATING RADAR FOR THE ASSESSMENT OF OF CONSERVATION STATE THE USETHEGROUND PENETRATING RADAR OF AN HISTORIC BUILDING FOR THE ASSESSMENT OF THE CONSERVATION STATE OF AN HISTORIC BUILDING
By Lucian Cristian Ratoiu

ASSESSMENT OF THE CONSERVATION STATE OF AN HISTORIC BUILDING BY GPR

This article proposes the elaboration of a dedicated database for monitoring the evolution of buried structures or anomalies of the underground layers based on data collection after periodic surveys. The use of a radar technique in establishing an efficient assessment protocol of the conservation condition of historical building foundations proves to be a useful and accessible task due to its major advantages. This nondestructive technique with fast and accurate acquisition time meets the characteristic require ments for the analysis of historic monuments. The possibility to perform periodic analyses allows the monitorization required for longterm preservation of cultural heritage. A case study is presented with a survey of the foundation of an historic building, dating from the beginning of the 20th century and located in the Dimitrie Gusti National Village Museum from Bucharest, Romania.

Research aims The research comprises two main objectives: to establish a useful and efficient instrument for periodic monitoring and evaluation of the con servation state or rehabilitation interventions on historic monuments; and to elaborate a dedicated system for data management that can provide important information for long time preserva tion of cultural heritage. Introduction Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) is a wellknown technique applied to identify buried structures, cavities or anomalies below the ground surface with the advantage to estimate the depth at which they can be found. The technique is based on the emissionreception of electromagnetic pulses and on their propagation in the soil. The different scanning results are strongly de pendent on the type of material encountered which is characterized by the dielectric constants. The radargrams resolution depends on factors such as the central antennas frequency, sampling frequency, antennas separation, and speed of acquisition, among others. The environmental responses, characterized through the resolution and depth of the wave propagation are dependent on the electromagnetic properties of the under
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Figure 1 and 2. The GPR system in Rueu household 2008 (upper) and 2009 (lower).

ground medium, the soil water concentration, the electric conductivity or the presence of metals. A fast survey by nondestructive means allows to establish an efficient plan for periodic control of historic building foundations. The aim of this re search is to gather a particular database designed
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Figure 3. Rueu house in 2008, before rehabilitation.

to compare the results and to detect changes in an early stage. Regular monitoring ensures a constant determi nation of minor changes in the historic monuments foundations. Preventive interventions ensure a long term preservation, thus avoiding major de gradations such as cracks or internal displacements of the walls structure. Case Study The Rueu house, dating from the early 20th cen tury, is a typical Romanian house that was trans ported and reconstructed in the Dimitrie Gusti National Village Museum, an openair ethno graphic museum in Bucharest that houses tradi tional Romanian architecture. The household con sists of the dwelling house and some annexes to shelter animals.
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The house was built from common clay mixed with vegetal aggregates, and the walls were painted with lime. The facade and one side of the house are provided with a low porch, supported on un decorated wood poles, with a traditional roof made by several layers of small pieces of wood. On the back of the house, the roof also covers the annexes. The conservation problems were mainly caused by capillarity moisture, especially on the annex rooms, combined with the frailty of the specific constituent materials. Data Acquisition The first acquisition campaign was made in 2008, before the rehabilitation of the building. The ob jective was to study the conservation state and to record the possible anomalies of the underground.
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ASSESSMENT OF THE CONSERVATION STATE OF AN HISTORIC BUILDING BY GPR

Figure 4. Rueu house in 2009, after rehabilitation.

In 2009, a second acquisition campaign was per formed after the rehabilitation works, with the objective of highlighting the differences before and after the interventions. For the data acquisition, two types of antennas were used, with frequency at 500 MHz and 800 MHz. The use of two different antennas allowed to investigate at higher depths with a higher res olution at subsurface layers, and also to confirm the recorded data. A very important factor is to verify the environmental conditions, once the high humidity of the soil caused by rain can influ ence the measurements. Fundamental in obtain ing accurate data is to adjust the system acqui sition parameters to the analyze requirements. Two parameters are essential. One is the sampling frequency that has to be 10 times the center fre quency of antenna in use. Second is the time win dow/number of samples which must be chosen
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properly: to long window burdens the system un necessarily and too short may ruin the data. Only by keeping the same parameters used previously a precise comparison of the results can be ensured. An effective procedure for fast control on the re habilitation of historic monuments foundations For the development of an efficient work guide used in examination of cultural heritage, the strictness

Figure 5. The plan of the Rueu house and the scanning directions.

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of interventions and investigations allowed by the legislation should be considered as prior. From this point of view, priority should be given to nondestructive and noninvasive techniques that provide high accuracy data that do not affect the object. Specific GPR information gathered requires an organized and dedicated database that can allow to compare and to follow the evolution of the con servation state. In this case actions can be taken at an early stage of decay, allowing to put in prac tice preventive conservation measures. Likewise, using the GPR technique with the aim of evaluating the rehabilitation of building found ations will prove to be an easy task, thanks to the major advantages, characteristic for this fast and noninvasive method.
Figure 6 (below). Data acquisition from the 2008 campaign.

Using a comparative model for observing the ob tained results will indicate modifications specific for the time elapsed since the last data acquisition.

Figure 7. Data acquisition from the 2009 campaign.

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ASSESSMENT OF THE CONSERVATION STATE OF AN HISTORIC BUILDING BY GPR

The frequency of the acquisitions number will allow a more accurate behavior of the ground founda tions, which is mainly influenced by the compacta tion movements of the soil layers caused by the high percentage of capillary moisture or by the new interventions carried out in that area. The steps of the procedure must include: strict delimitation of the area, description of the work conditions, recording the data in the same envi ronmental conditions, identical processing of the data collected, resuming to new acquisitions after a well established time, using the same settings for the GPR system, and using at least two differ ent frequency antennas to confirm the results obtained. Data Processing and Interpretation Once collected, the data was processed using routine corrections, provided by the dedicated software the post processing medium of GPR data collected, to ensure a better visualization of the results.
Figure 9. Segment GH, 500 MHz antenna, 20082009.

Figure 8. Procedure diagram.

The radargrams allow to emphasize the layer anom alies or eventual objects buried and to point out their Cartesian coordinates. The runtime was kept to ensure the same data postprocessing, the eventu ally changing being the result of foundation evolu tion, instead of data workflow differences. On the radargrams recorded in the same years the anomalies that correspond to the Cartesian co ordinates are emphasized, which demonstrates
Figure 10. Segment GH, 800 MHz antenna, 20082009.

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Figure 11. Segment AB, 500 MHz antenna, 2008.

Figure 12. Segment AB, 500 MHz antenna, 2009.

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ASSESSMENT OF THE CONSERVATION STATE OF AN HISTORIC BUILDING BY GPR

Figure 13. Segment AB, 800 MHz antenna, 2008.

Figure 14. Segment AB, 800 MHz antenna, 2009.

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the validity of the measurements. The differences between the 2008 and 2009 results are obvious. At the depth of about 11,4 m are highlighted the reflections of the electromagnetic radiation received from the intervention over the founda tion with concrete. This intervention was made to consolidate the porch and the wall faade corres ponding to the main entrance. Even if the scanned area does not correspond pre cisely to the place where the intervention was made, the reflections are present because the electromagnetic radiation is propagated in the soil under the form of a truncated cone. That ex plains why those reflections are present in 2009 otherwise under the strict area of the house, delimited by exterior walls, the interventions concerned just a superficial depth. Conclusions We have obtained a high accuracy examination by nondestructive means of the Rueu house foun. dation at the Village National Museum Dimitrie Guti in Bucharest, Romania. The results highlighted the anomalies of the un derlayers in a mapping format that also provided the depths at which they could be found. A fast and efficient acquisition model was applied using two different frequency antennas (500 and 800 MHz). The information was processed and collected in a dedicated database elaborated for long term monitorization. The differences between the recordings performed in 2008 and 2009 revealed an existent interven tion. This involved the consolidation of the entire perimeter of the construction with concrete. Proofs of this intervention have been identified by the 2009 scan at a depth ranging between
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1 m and 1.4 m. These data were not present in the 2008 research. Periodic data acquisition obtained according to the procedure proposed will determine an ac curate characterization and comparison of the collected results.

Acknowledgements The author would like to acknowledge the support of his coordinator Roxana Rdvan and colleague Drago Ene from the National Institute for Deve lopment and Research in Optoelectronics INOE 2000. Also a special thank is addressed to Vivian Dragomir, from the Village National Museum Dimitrie Guti, Bucharest.
Bibliography [1] L. B. Conyers and D. Goodman, Ground Penet rating Radar: an Introduction for Archaeologists, AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, London and New Delhi, 1997 [2] D. J. Daniels (ed.), Ground Penetrating Radar, The Institution of Engineering and Technology, London, 2007 [3] F. Garca Garca, M. Ramrez Blanco, I.l Rodrguez Abad, R. Martnez Sala, I. Tort Ausina, J. Benlloch Marco, and J. L. Montalv Conesa, GPR technique as a tool for cultural heritage restoration: San Miguel de los Reyes Hieronymite Monastery, 16th century (Valencia, Spain), Journal of Cultural Heritage, Vol ume 8 (1), 2007, pp. 8792, doi:10.1016/j.culher. 2006.10.005, URL [4] V. PrezGracia, F. Garca, L. G. Pujades, R. Gon zlez Drigo, and D. Di Capua, GPR survey to study the restoration of a Roman monument, Journal of Cultural Heritage, Volume 9 (1), 2008, pp. 8996,
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ASSESSMENT OF THE CONSERVATION STATE OF AN HISTORIC BUILDING BY GPR

doi:10.1016/j.culher.2007.09.003, URL [5] D. Barilaro, C. Branca, S. Gresta, S. Imposa, A. Leone, and D. Majolino, Ground penetrating radar (G.P.R.) surveys applied to the research of crypts in San Sebastiano's church in Catania (Sicily), Journal of Cultural Heritage, Volume 8 (1), 2007, pp. 7376, doi:10.1016/j.culher.2006.10.003, URL [6] S. Castellaro S. Imposa, F. Barone, F. Chiavetta, S. Gresta, and F. Mulargia Georadar and passive seismic survey in the Roman Amphitheatre of Catania (Sicily), Journal of Cultural Heritage, Volume 9(4), 2008, pp. 357366, doi:10.1016/j.culher.2008.03. .004, URL [7] F. Soldovieri, and L. Orlando, Novel tomographic based approach and processing strategies for GPR measurements using multifrequency antennas, Journal of Cultural Heritage, Volume 10, Supple ment 1, ICT and Remote sensing for Cultural Resource Management and Documentation, 2009, pp. 8392, doi:10.1016/j.culher.2009.09.001, URL [8] P. X. Neto, and W. E. de Medeiros, A practical approach to correct attenuation effects in GPR data, Journal of Applied Geophysics, Volume 59 (2), 2006, pp. 140 151, doi:10.1016/j.jappgeo. 2005.09.002, URL

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

econservation 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 19, April 2011 submissions due 1st March 2011 for Issue 20, June 2011 submissions due 1st May 2011 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 preallocated space in the magazine to each section Please check our publication guidelines for more information.

LUCIAN CRISTIAN RATOIU

Conservatorrestorer Contact: lucian@inoe.inoe.ro Lucian Cristian Ratoiu is a conservatorrestorer specialized in mural paintings. He graduated in 2007 from the Department for ConservationRes toration Works of Art of the National University of Art in Bucharest, Romania. Since 2008, he is working as an assistant researcher at the Centre of Excellence for Restoration by Optoelectrical Techniques of the National Institute for Develop ment and Research in Optoelectronics INOE.
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case study

VIRTUAL AESTHETIC PRESENTATION OF POLYCHROME SCULPTURES

Preserving the artistic authenticity of polychrome carved wood pieces in the conservationrestoration process

By Daniela Cristina Pintilie

Virtual reconstruction of the polychromy was chosen to pre serve the artistic authenticity of the sculptures Evangelist and Madonna and Child, producing variants of virtual chromatic integration that are aimed at creating images in dicative of the original appearance of the objects. Represent ations of this type come as a manifestation of a mental exercise to view complete polychrome sculptures, or their ap pearance after chromatic integration, with the advantage that there is no direct intervention on the objects. Virtual restora tion of the polychromy can be achieved in several ways, de pending on options such as image editing technical skills and available software.

VIRTUAL AESTHETIC PRESENTATION OF POLYCHROME SCULPTURES

Introduction Each work of art, regardless of its execution tech nique, dating or conservation state, requires a thorough analysis prior to any intervention. It is absolutely necessary to know the historical con text of objects in the restoration process and the possibility to compare them with similar objects when they are in advanced state of decay, in order to avoid a hypothetical undesirable restoration and its consequences. Every possible intervention must be treated critically to preserve the artistic authen ticity of the object, being very important to avoid any operations that are not necessarily required.
Figures 1 and 2.Evangelist polychrome sculpture.

In this article two case studies are on display, two conservationrestoration proposals that include chromatic integration and polychromy virtual re construction. The reconstructions made using software are not aimed at creating models of the objects, or their possible aspects after interven tion, but are intended to achieve virtual images of the undamaged sculptures. Until recently, but even today, polychromy reconstruction has been performed directly on objects, either by repainting intervention that has affected the authenticity of the sculptures, or by the complete reproduction of the object, operation that is similar to the vir tual reconstruction.

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I. Case Study: Evangelist Polychrome Sculpture The Evangelist sculpture has been dated back to the early eighteenth century, having Transylvania as its place of origin. Today it belongs to a private collection. It has 63 cm height, 24 cm width and a thickness varying between 3.3 and 12.5 cm. It was executed in weak tempera on carved wooden support. The sculpture is a basrelief that was part of an overall frieze type, probably from a shrine. In time, the sculpture has been subjected to some interventions at the level of the paint layer, mainly repaintings that are visible in the area of the green garment. Different layers could be identified as: green whitened with primer, blue whitened with primer and a final layer of green. Given that the layers of repainting are powdery and the original is not, it is supposed that for their execution in compatible materials were used or the binder was applied in insufficient concentration. Preserving the artistic authenticity of sculpture For the virtual reconstruction of the Evangelist polychrome sculpture photographs acquired by optical microscopy were used, of samples taken from areas where the painting was preserved. Virtual restoration of the polychromy of the Evangelist sculpture L*a*b* parameters of the pigments were deter mined using Adobe Photoshop, using photos taken from optical microscope Leica DMLS from the laboratory of Chemistry of the Conservation and Restoration Department of the National Art University, Bucharest. For each color five meas urements from different points were recorded in order to obtain values as close as possible to the reality.
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Figures 3 and 4. Stratigraphy at the level of the garment: a. support of wood; b. original primer; c. green; d. blue; e. repainting primer; f. green repainting.

Figure 5. Map of the sampling areas.

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The average of the parameters obtained from the five points was calculated and used as standard for the subsequent mathematical calculations to determine the E* (total difference), made in Microsoft Excel. (E *= ( L* a* 2 + 2 + b* 20). Once determined, values greater than 10 E* were excluded and the average was recalculated resulting in the determination of the local color parameters. The same calculations were repeated for each color. L* represents brightness, a* chromatic parameters on the Magenta Green axis, b* chromatic para meters on the YellowBlue axis, C* chromatic in dex, C* total color difference, H* is the hue angle, H* hue angle range. * values indicate how much the L*a*b* parameters differ from the standard and the analyzed values. The objective is to obtain a color space for classifying numerical differences. A* and b* parameters are independent of the brightness L*, expressing only color differences, namely: if a* is greater, it means that the sample has more red than the standard, or more green if a* is lower; a greater b* value shows that the sam ple is more yellow, or more blue for a lower b* value; and finally when L* is greater, the sample is lighter than the standard, and darker for a lower L* value.
Figure 6. Determination of the L*a*b* values for red (garment).

Starting with the garment stratigraphy, where the sequence of the layers it is best revealed, three possible aspects of the object at a certain point during time were virtually generated with Adobe Photoshop. Thus, an image of the complete poly chromy of the object was obtained without inter fering with it. After the calculations, the results were illustrated through graphic representations. Determination of the L*a*b* values for red (garment) The points in which the L*a*b* parameters were recorded on the optical microscopy photography were marked with R (R1, R2, R3, R4, R5). For R2 and R3, E* is greater than 10, therefore, the corresponding L*a* b* values were excluded and the average was recalculated from the remaining values (figure 6). Determination of the L*a*b* values for ocher The points in which the L*a*b* parameters were recorded were marked with C (C1, C2, C3, C4, C5). To achieve the final average, i.e., to establish the L*a* b* parameters of the carnation, measure ments from points C1 and C5 with E* greater than 10 were eliminated (figure 7).

Figure 7. Determination of the L*a*b* values for ocher.

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Determination of the L*a*b* values for gray (book) The points in which the L*a*b* parameters were recorded were marked with G (G1, G2, G3, G4, G5). All measurements have E* value within the ac cepted parameters, so all were used to calculate the final average (figure 8). Determination of the L*a*b* values for whitened green The points in which the L*a*b* parameters were recorded were marked with VA (VA1, VA2, VA3, VA4, VA5). E* value for VA1 was greater than the limit so it was eliminated (figure 9). Determination of the L*a*b* values for blue The points in which the L*a*b* parameters were recorded were marked with A. E values greater for the L*a*b* parameters of the points A2, A4 and A5, so the final average was recalculated us ing the remaining ones (figure 10). Determination of the L*a*b* values for green (garment) The points in which the L*a*b* parameters were recorded were marked with V (V1, V2, V3, V4, V5). Having a value greater than 10, the point V3 was removed in order to achieve the average of the para meters L*a*b* corresponding to green (figure 11). Given the garment stratigraphy and the L*a*b* values obtained we were able to achieve three possible aspects that the object might have had during the past. The layers of repaintings are well distinguished, as follows: whitened green, azur ite blue, green.
Figures 811 (from up to down). Determination of the L*a*b* values for gray (book); whitened green; blue; and green (garment).
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From up to down, left to right: Figure 12. Evangelist sculpture after virtual, partial polychromy res toration. Figure 13. Evangelist Sculpture after virtual polychromy restoration whitened green.

Figure 14. Evangelist Sculpture after virtual polychromy restoration blue. Figure 15. Evangelist Sculpture after virtual polychromy restoration green.
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Virtual chromatic integration of the Evangelist sculpture In order to preserve the artistic authenticity of the object without interfering with it, two possible aspects were obtained after chromatic integration carried out in velatura technique only on the ori ginal, visible ground layer. This operation allows the artistic authenticity to be preserved by minimal intervention on the ob ject, placing instead more emphasis on its con servation. As with the virtual reconstructions of the poly chromy, digital chromatic integration does not intend to achieve variants from which to choose the most appropriate, but only to satisfy the de sire to visualize the outcome of an intervention of this type.

Archaeological restoration is justified by the fact that the polychromy is preserved only in a very small percentage, from which a certain propor tion is repainting. Chromatic integration trials made directly on the object are not 100% reversible, affecting the ori ginal to some extent. Removal of tests inevitably damages part of the original matter, either the pla ster or the paint layer, affecting thus the authen ticity of the object. The risk of damaging the sculp ture through interventions that are not necessarily required is very high and is not justified, especially since its conservation does not depend on them. Although the proposed treatment is based on an archaeological approach, two versions of virtual chromatic integration have been achieved with an image editing software in order to emphasize that this operation is not absolutely necessary.

Figures 1618. Left: original aspect of the Evangelist sculpture; Center: a first variant of virtual chromatic integration; Right: a second variant of virtual chromatic integration.

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II. Case Study: Madonna and Child Polychrome Sculpture The sculpture Madonna and Child dates from the twentieth century and is also originally from Tran sylvania. Today it belongs to a private collection. It was executed in tempera on carbonized wood support, which is visible at the naked eye inside the lacunas of the pictorial layer. No repaintings were identified on this sculpture. Conservation state The wood was carbonized before the execution of the polychromy, which leads to the assumption that the sculpture is a fake and that the support was burned so that the polychromy deteriorates in a short time. The carbonized surface transpires through the preparation and color layers, creating the impression of an antique. The assessment of the conservation state at the level of the wood support shows carbonizations, lacunas on large areas and surface deposits. The pictorial layer is friable and has a poor adherence to the substrate, showing erosions, lacunas, de posits and stains.
Figure 21. Madonna image: a stains due to carbonized wood support; b erosion of color layer; c lacunas of the color lay er up to the preparation layer; d lacunas of the preparation layer up to the wood support.

Figure 19. Polychrome sculpture Madonna and Child. Figure 20. Stratigraphy in the garment: a wood support; b carbonized wood support; c preparation layer; d first color layer red; e second color layer blue.

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Preserving the artistic authenticity of the polychrome sculpture Madonna and Child When dealing with a fake, the issue of authenti city is different to some degree. On the one hand, there is the issue of preserving the authenticity of a work normally done in tempera on wood tech nique, and on the other hand, preserving the au thenticity as it was thought by its author, through the carbonization of the wood and the creation of a false patina. Given these circumstances, the fairest solution to the object and to the author's intention is to adopt an archaeological approach to its restoration. Operations performed directly on the object From the methodological point of view a resto ration that includes minimal interventions was chosen. Light surface deposits were removed with a soft brush, after which the pictorial layer was consolidated in several stages with fish glue in different concentrations. The deposits present on the painted surface, on the preparation layer and on the wood visible inside the gaps were re moved. Virtual restoration of the polychromy of the Madonna with Child sculpture The sculpture benefited from its integrity for a very short period of time. There is also the possibility that some gaps were induced deliberately by the author. To get a picture of the sculpture as it could have looked in the beginning, a polychromy vir tual restoration was carried out. Unlike in the case of the Evangelist sculpture, to reconstitute the polychromy of this object several particular issues must be taken into account, due to its specific execution technique. The red color and the carbonized wood surface that became
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visible through the blue create the false antique impression by darker or lighter areas. This gives personality and authenticity to the sculpture. Thus, we chose to restore the polychromy by mim icking the existing areas using an image editing software like Adobe Photoshop, method that allowed us to keep the artificial antique effects.
Figure 22. Madonna and Child sculpture after virtual, partial polychromy restoration.

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The virtual restoration of the polychromy is not aimed at creating a model, or a sketch of what the object could become if subject to possible inter ventions, but stands for projecting a mental re construction of what the sculpture would have been immediately after its creation.

Virtual chromatic integration of the Madonna and Child sculpture Chromatic integration was carried out virtually by applying a neutral glaze on the visible preparation layer with the intention to send the gaps to the background so that to create a surrounding for the original existing painting. Given this and the practical execution with reversible materials, namely water colors, the restoration principles should be respected, but one can not predict whether the outcome will be satisfactory and beneficial for the object. In this respect, virtual representations bring a great contribution to the establishment the methodology for restoration, especially the treatment of the gaps. As in the case of the Evangelist sculpture, we do not aim to achieve chromatic integration versions in order to select the best from them, but to be able to visualize this option without interfering with the authenticity of the object. Even if we chose an archaeological restoration type, all possible versions should be considered, since at a future restoration, in a detrimental context one might even opt for the repainting of the sculp ture. By virtual chromatic integration the author's in tent to create an antiquelooking sculpture is re spected and at the same time a coherent reading of the sculpture is achieved. Conclusions The authenticity of the works of art is mainly pro tected by minimal intervention especially during restoration, but this does not mean that the doc umentation of the object should also be limited. Whether it is decided to remove or not the re paintings, this aspect must be documented by

Figure 23. Madonna and Child sculpture after virtual polychromy restoration.

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Figures 24 and 25. Madonna and Child sculpture before and after virtual chromatic integration.

laboratory analyses, crosssections, etc., which eventually will be part of the file that accompanies the object and can serve for a future restoration. Unfortunately, virtual representations are not al ways well received, and their purpose may be mis interpreted. It is true that they can serve as a range of possible options to a reconstitution, repainting,
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restoration or chromatic integration, but their value in the preservation of artistic authenticity should not be neglected. If until recently the only possibilities to materialize a reconstructed image of a work of art, or of an architectural ensemble, of which some elements are missing or have lost polychromy during time,
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were repaintings or reproductions, now we can perform virtual representations, which not only do not affect in any way the original, but are more accurate, involve lower costs, require fewer con sumption of materials, and the diversity of treat ment of various aspects is greater. Polychromy virtual restoration can be achieved in several ways, where possible, as could be ob served in this study. It can be precise, as in the case of the Evangelist sculpture, for which values L*a*b* were determined, or intuitive as in the case of the Madonna and Child sculpture. Both versions are useful, and during the course of an intervention the second may be preceded by the first one. Such representations can protect works of art from operations that might compromise their authenticity and integrity. No operation performed directly on the object, be it cleaning tests or chromatic integration proposals, is fully reversible. To preserve the artistic authenticity of an object every intervention must be treated critically, and it is very important to avoid any operations that are not necessarily required. Note The present article is an extract from authors dissertation work with a major specialization artistic heritage conservation and restoration methodologies: "Protecting the artistic authen ticity of polychrome carved wood pieces in the process of conservation and restoration", carried out within the Department of Conservation and Restoration, National University of Arts Bucha rest. The author graduated in June 2010 under the coordination of Lect. univ. Dana Luminia Postolache conservatorrestorer, Lect. univ. Olimpia Hinamatsuri Barbu and Prof. univ. Ioana Gomoiu, conservationscientists.
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Selected bibliography
[1] C. Brandi, Theory of restoration, Istituto Centrale per il Restauro/Nardini Editore, 2005 [2] O. Cassaza, Il restauro pittorico nell'unita di meto dologia, Nardini editore, 2007 [3] R. Peral, D. Sagasti and S. Sillaurren, "Virtual Re storation of Cultural Heritage Through RealTime 3D Models Projection", in M. Mudge, N. Ryan, and R. Sco pigno (eds.), VAST 2005, The 6th International Sym posium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, Oct 30Nov 4, 2006, Pisa, Italy, URL [pdf] [4] F. Descamps, and J. Carballo (eds), Methodology for the Conservation of Polychromed Wooden Altarpieces, Junta de Andaluca, Consejera de Cultura and the J. Paul Getty Trust, 2006, URL [pdf] [5] G. Lpez, M. Jos, and F. Descamps (eds.), Workshop on Methodology for the Conservation of Polychromed Wooden Altarpieces: Document on Retablos 2002, The Getty Conservation Institute and Junta Andaluca Con sejera de Cultura, 2004, URL [pdf]

DANIELACRISTINA PINTILIE
Conservatorrestorer Contact: daialand@yahoo.com DanielaCristina Pintilie is a conservatorrestorer specialised in panel paintings. She graduated in 2008 from the Faculty of Art History and Theory, Conservation and Restoration section, of the Na tional University of Arts in Bucharest, Romania where she also completed a Master degree in 2010. During her training, she participated in different conservation projects such as of the wooden Church of the Nativity of the Virgin from Ieud, Maramures, the Romanian Athenaeum, and the churches Col ea, Stavropoleos and Doamnei in Bucharest, the Beheading of St. John the Baptist from Arbore, and St. Nicholas from Blineti. She currently works for a private conservation company in Bucharest.
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