Blog @ the Nelson-Atkins

Senior Conservator Kate Garland recently completed a project cleaning a 10th-century Persian earthenware Platter with Kufic Inscription. Garland noted that the platter appeared to have many fills as well as several areas where overpainting was done by a 20th-century restorer to conceal old breaks.

The platter was cleaned with acetone solvent to remove as much of the dirt and overpaint as was safely possible. As she slowly cleaned, using a wooden stick and cotton tip soaked in the acetone, Garland pointed to areas around the platter’s edges where restorers added paint over the original glaze.

Conservation on 11th-14th-century Islamic objects has been a recent focus for Museum conservators. Among those projects was a survey, repair on a vase, and careful cleaning of an inkwell. A recent project for Kress Fellow Conservation Intern Jiafang Liang has been on the late 12th-early 13th century Persian bowl pictured below. It is composed of earthenware with a lead glaze and depicts a scene of a courtier and attendants, hence its descriptive title: Bowl with Scene of Courtier and Attendants. During her examination, Jiafang found evidence of previous restoration. She pointed out areas where that work is more obvious, including cracks in artificially painted glaze as well as differences in enamel paints, design and texture.

If you visit the minimalism and conceptual art galleries over the month of February, you may see someone touching the art. Rose Daly, objects conservation graduate intern, will be assessing the condition and treating the sculpture End of Day: Nightscape IV.

This is a unique opportunity to see art conservation in action, which is almost exclusively done behind the scenes in the Museum. Art conservation is the department concerned with the preservation and restoration of the art collection.

The treatment of Henry Moore’s Large Torso:Arch has begun!

An earlier post highlighted the de-installation of this large bronze sculpture, when it was moved from the Kansas City Sculpture Park to the Objects Conservation Lab.

The Conservation department has made significant progress restoring several 11-14th-century Islamic ceramic objects—some of which is highlighted in earlier entries (here and here).

These ceramics have not been the sole focus, however, as a variety of objects are in the Islamic collection, including metal works.

An earlier blog post highlighted survey work on Islamic ceramics being conducted Nelson-Atkins Kress Fellow conservation intern, Jiafang Liang. Now, we’ll take a look at a conservation project influenced by information collected in that survey.

Senior Conservator Kate Garland has been working to restore a 13th-14th-century Islamic ceramic vase. It is an archeological piece, like most of the Islamic pieces in the Museum’s collection. Most were found with varying degrees of breakage—this vase, in particular, had broken into 50 pieces.

But why bother restoring a vase in such condition?

Among the more than 33,500 art objects owned by the Nelson-Atkins, 90 of them are striking 11th-14th-century Islamic ceramics. South & Southeast Asian art curator Kim Masteller and conservation staff are in the process of evaluating these objects—most of which have not been on display since their acquisition in the 1930s.

Nelson-Atkins Kress Fellow conservation intern, Jiafang Liang, has been busy conducting a survey of the Islamic ceramics (shown to the left is a view of the workspace). The survey’s purpose is to provide details about the composition, authenticity, and condition of each object, determine treatment, and estimate time needed for labor to make an object display-ready. When the survey is complete, conservators and curator will prioritize the objects and their needs.

A brisk fall morning was a good time to move Henry Moore’s sculpture, Large Torso: Arch. The movement of large sculptures in the Kansas City Sculpture Park requires rigging, large equipment and an understanding of the physics of heavy lifting. Rigging refers to a system of moving objects by using straps and pulleys, and rigging is commonly used in theater production and the movement of large museum objects.

In an earlier post, we discussed x-rays of Claude Monet’s Water Lilies. Let’s continue our examination with a closer look at Monet’s brushwork.

Paint can be thin, fluid and drippy or it can be as thick as cake icing. Its thickness and texture impact the appearance of the final painting. For example, during your next visit, compare the thin, wash-like paint of Eugène Delacroix’s Christ on the Sea of Galilee (Gallery P29) to the thick dabs of paint on Vincent van Gogh’s Olive Orchard (Gallery P32).

Water Lilies by Claude Monet contains multiple layers of paint with varying thickness. His brushwork is energetic, confident and attention-grabbing. Using detail images, I’d like to share with you two ways Monet applied paint: wet-over-dry and wet-into-wet.

An artist can create different visual effects depending on the amount of time that passes between paint applications. Much of the paint on Water Lilies is applied wet-over-dry, meaning that paint was added on top of a dry paint layer.

(Detail from the lower right quadrant of Water Lilies)

To better visualize this type of painting, let’s take a closer look at one of Monet’s paint strokes in the image above. When Monet applied the sweeping, white paint stroke in the center of the image, his paint skipped across the bumpy textures of the dry paint below. As you can see, the resulting paint stroke, applied wet-over-dry, has an interesting, rough, tactile quality.

Conversely, wet-into-wet painting occurs when paint is added on top of a layer that is still wet. The paint colors intermix on the canvas and produce a very different appearance. When Monet applied bright red to the base of the water lily flower in the image below, some red paint mixed into the white. In this same area, notice how the purple paint on the outer edge of the flower swirls and blends into the white.

(Detail of a flower on the upper right quadrant of Water Lilies)

There are many ways to enjoy art and thinking about the materials and painting process is a favorite of mine. Sometimes it is nice to relax and admire some swirling, flickering paint strokes—and there is a bench conveniently located in front of the Monet in Gallery P31…

Recently, conservators, curators and scientists examined Monet’s beloved Water Lilies to understand how the artist painted, what pigments were used and how his composition evolved.

Given the large size and popularity of the painting, the examination took place in the gallery. A portion of the space was roped off so visitors could watch Mary Schafer, Associate Conservator, at work and learn more about the examination process.