Low-fired Ceramic Bust
Eysler Konservierung und Restaurierung
Condition
The bust is a low-fired hollow clay sculpture with a coloured overcoating dating to the early 20th century. The bust suffered damage from a fall in four main areas, at the chin, the crown of the head, the left ear and the back of the neck. It was originally mounted on a wooden stand with plaster coated hessian wrapped around a steel bar. This had previously been secured inside the neck opening, however this had become detached either following the fall, or resulting in the fall.
Treatment Aim
Reassembly and adhesion of fractured parts, gap filling of missing sections and retouching to match overcoat.
Treatment
Re-mounting
As the previous mounting had failed, a new method of holding the head upright that would not require undue pressure on the repaired neck was required. Using the original metal bar and wooden stand, blocks of Ethafoam were cut to fit the diameter of the interior of the head and fixed to the bar internally using hot polymer glue before reassembly of the broken neck was carried out.
Reassembly
A barrier layer of 10% PB72 in Dowanol; 1-Methoxy-2-propanol was applied to all break edges. Following construction of an assembly plan, all usable fragments were re-adhered in place using Paraloid B72 @70% in Dowanol. Some fragments without a section of overcoating were prone to disintegration and difficult to place correctly. Due to time-constraints these fragments were not used in the reassembly.
Gap filling
As the missing segments were mostly from internal areas which could only be distinguished after assembly, it was not possible to make detachable fills. Therefore, a barrier layer of 10% PB72 in Dowanol was applied to all break edges. An RV silicone dam was applied to the reverse of the fractured ear to prevent leakage and gypsum modelling plaster was injected into all gaps larger than 2mm. Once dried these plaster fills were shaped with a scalpel. Fine cracks and fills less than 2mm were filled using Polyfilla interior. Once set these were also shaped with a sharp scalpel. Residue dust was removed with a soft bristle brush and the overcoating around the fills were swabbed with Dowanol to remove any remaining residue.
Colour retouching
All gap fillings were retouched using Goldens® acrylic paint.
