This vase is a really wonderful piece of
Russian craftsmanship made in the end of
the 19th century, in fact completed in 1872.
The vase itself is made of wonderful
Korgon porphyry, which is a particularly
prized Russian hardstone found in the
Altai Mountains in Siberia.
The whole piece was made in one of the most
important centres for hardstone production
in Russia, the Kolyvan factory
in Yekaterinburg.
In order to have the vase restored
it was necessary to find a specialist
conservator who could piece together
some of the elements that were broken.
But also, more importantly, to be able
to replicate in a correctly conservation
grade way, the areas that were lost.
The main problems with this were
structurally how it was going to be put together,
loss of detail in a couple of places,
that was the biggest cosmetic problem,
and it was just really dirty, it just needed
a little bit of care.
The cleaning for this piece, it was actually
really straight forward. It was just detergent and
hot water and then a solvent rinse afterwards
just to get rid of any residue.
We have photographs of the vase
taken in the late 19th century which clearly show
that Queen Victoria had placed it in a very
prominent position at Windsor Castle in the
Crimson Drawing Room. The photographs show
that the vase and pedestal are prominently placed
in the window bay overlooking the gardens
of the East Terrace.
The vase remained there until 1908
when it was then subsequently moved into
the Orangery at Windsor where it appears
to have remained until about 1934.
Thereafter it was placed into storage.
It was around this time we think, although
we have no specific records to confirm it,
that the vase and pedestal suffered some minor
damage. This might in fact explain why they were no longer
on display.
The vase was actually a really important
official gift from the Russian Emperor,
Alexander II, to Queen Victoria.
The gift itself was made in 1874.
The gift was sent to England in advance
of the Emperor's visit to London.
After the cleaning we went into making
moulds for the detail and repairing the pieces
that were broken off.
It's similar to an egg and dart design.
After we've taken the mould we make a
resin mix that matches the colour
of the stone and fill the mould and wait
for that to go off.
We match the colour of the stone using
earth pigments and we match it by eye.
It really is just trial and error and experience.
Once we've got a plain coloured resin piece
we then cut out little chips and nicks
and lines and fill them with different
colour resins.
We do that 3 or 4 times so that we've got
the natural variations in the stone.
A vase of this type takes a tremendous amount
of skill to carve and we can clearly see
very proudly engraved on the bottom
of the porphyry vase an inscription.
This records that the vase took 18 months
to make which seems an extraordinary length
of time but when we look more in detail
at different aspects of the vase
we can see just why this was the case.
But the part that really takes
the greatest amount of skill but also
the longest amount of time is the amount
of hand carving and hand finishing which
actually takes place.
And this is what gives the vase its
extraordinary different levels of surface finish.
Part of the process for the vase and pedestal
to undergo its fantastic conservation work
has been, of course, moving it.
Getting the middle part on to the column itself
is quite a feat of engineering and we think
that's why there's been the damaged caused.
Because it's so difficult to handle.
This is by no means an inconsiderable task.
It actually requires a lot of specialist intervention,
particularly because the vase and pedestal
combined weigh over 600 kg.
Now that the conservation has been completed
the vase is fully erected and safely on display
the completion of this whole process
on top of all the research that
has been undertaken, is to properly
document the vase and pedestal visually through
photography.
This is really the final stage in this journey
of bringing the vase back to public attention.