This is a very clear case of,
if this object didn't get help,
it would deteriorate even more over time.
I'm Sara, director of conservation at Center Art Studio,
and today I'm going to walk you through
how we restore a polychrome sculpture of St. Paul
from 1720.
The work that we're doing on St. Paul
is a full restoration.
This piece was very dirty.
It also was flaking,
so the paint was lifting and cupping.
It was actively in a state of degradation,
where any kind of transport or touching or handling
of this piece would potentially risk
incurring additional damage.
This piece belongs to a private collector in New York City.
We know that it's Latin colonial.
It is carved from a single piece of wood,
and it's been painted and gilded.
The book and the sword are always symbolic of St. Paul,
so when you see those attributes on a sculpture
or in a painting or work of art,
you can know that that saint is meant to be St. Paul.
The writing on the book, it almost looks
like an early depiction of music known as neumes.
That wouldn't be a typical attribute
of the book that St. Paul holds.
It stands out in this piece as being a little bit unusual.
You never know exactly what conditions
something has been exposed to,
so there are certain climatic conditions
that can cause flaking.
We also know that because the paint is flaking
in particular areas,
that means that the entire sculpture is at risk.
The first step of this restoration
is to consolidate the flaking piece.
We can't clean the object until it's stabilized.
Obviously, it's an object that has history,
but it is nicely carved.
It had beautiful crackle lines,
and the colors were vibrant.
So if we remediate those issues,
we're going to end up with a very beautiful object.
The book was heavily flaking.
It also is just a big open horizontal plane
that's going to accumulate a lot of dirt.
We're going to do the same consolidation process
to the feet.
So, the first thing we have to do is apply this resin.
It's a completely stable conservation-grade resin.
It's dissolved in a solvent.
We apply it with a brush,
and we apply it on the surface,
and also we try to get under the flakes
and into the cracks of the sculpture as best we can.
Capillary action helps us here.
So this liquid flows under the chips
and into the recesses of the sculpture,
and the sculpture soaks it up.
That allows the flakes to become flexible,
and we can kind of push them down back into position.
And then over the course of a few hours,
the solvent that that resin was dissolved in evaporates,
but the resin remains.
And so that stabilizes the piece.
We use a solvent to simultaneously remove that resin
and also clean the dirt off.
Just that one solvent removes all those layers
and just gets us down to the original paint layer.
There were felt pads on the bottom
of the base of the sculpture.
They also can be places where dirt gets trapped.
So these were not really even necessary,
so we just removed them,
and we'll clean under those areas and just start fresh.
Now that the piece has been cleaned,
we are going to move on to filling the cracks
and areas of loss.
We use a water-based putty to fill in
any missing areas on the figure,
on the robe, on the base.
It goes on in sort of a liquid, viscous state.
It basically is replacing the missing gesso.
We overfill a little bit
because it is so easily reversible and reducible
that you're going to get a more even fill
if you slightly overfill the area of loss.
You know, we put it on and it looks a little wrong,
but then we can use water to reduce these fills.
We also can use a very fine-grit sandpaper.
You want to be very careful that you're using a grit
that's not going to cause any damage
to the original painted surface.
Now that the sculpture has been filled,
we'll use brushes and conservation paints
to inpaint those fills and match,
as best we can, the original paint
that would have been in those places.
We use conservation paints when we're doing inpainting.
And inpainting is simply applying paint to fills.
This is different than overpainting,
which would be painting over original surfaces.
It's really a process of color matching
to the surrounding area.
My approach when I'm doing it
is to typically do washes of color.
So I'll put a color on a fill,
and then I'll be like, OK, this needs to simultaneously be
more red, green, yellow, and brown.
So then I'll add those colors to my brush,
and then I'll do it again.
So it's a series of washes that accumulate
to create the desired color.
It goes from looking like a slightly broken object
in a state of repair to looking like a complete object
quite quickly once all the inpainting happens.
So that transition is very satisfying to see.
All the areas were stabilized
and filled and color-matched correctly.
I think we did a very good job
in making it be a more complete object.
Now that we are done with the inpainting,
we apply shellac to the sculpture.
We apply it with a brush
all over the whole sculpture and allow it to dry.
After the final coat is applied to the sculpture,
we'll wipe it with a cloth, buff it,
and make sure that there's no surface dust.
This restoration took a few weeks for us to complete.
This piece needed to be conserved
because of the state of degradation that it was in.
I'm very satisfied with this restoration.
A lot of time went into it.
I'm very happy with how the whole project turned out.
And really, it's always very satisfying
to be able to not only stop damage
but prevent future damage from happening on an object.
It just makes us feel
like we are helping extend the longevity
of a work of art through the work that we do.