Beautiful portraits were done on thin ivory panels in the 17th – 19th centuries. Many were done in England and France, and they are mostly quite small – about 2-3” tall, often mounted in brooches and pendants. We restore a variety of damage to these panels. In this case the ivory panel had broken, with a small amount of damage to the surrounding image. We adhered the pieces with PVA, and hand painted the small losses with B-72 acrylics and ...
This Murano glass vase had broken off cleanly at the neck. Adhering it back with our optical epoxy produced an almost invisible repair that is stronger than the original glass. If, God forbid, it should ever break again, our experience shows that it will break along different lines.
This giraffe is an unusual material for us – cement. The form is delightful, and since its repair the owner has taken it inside, so it will stay as pretty as it is in the “after” photograph. When we received it, there was extensive cracking – the ears, neck, and all the way down the body. A wire armature kept the ears, even though cement was missing from both. The first stage of our restoration was to conserve – sealing the long ...
These Daum glass flowers were reassembled with optical epoxy, then filled with a colored optical epoxy and coated to recreate the satin texture of the original. Our rating of repairs called this a “near invisible” repair, which is quite good for glass repairs.
This lovely early Ming xuan-de pitcher had old cracks in the handle and the spout support. We sealed these cracks first to give as much strength as possible to its slender curves, then we filled and airbrushed the cracks, recreating the spreading softness that the underglaze blue cobalt glaze acquires when it is fired. It is a challenge to soften these color edges, and to perfectly recreate the subtle range of blue shades that the cobalt takes on as it ...
When a lead statue falls over there are problems. The metal is so soft, and so heavy, that the impact alone causes tearing and severe deformation. This fountain, about three feet tall, also had a couple of repair attempts that needed to be removed. The lead was re-bent. There were losses that were filled, and the water supply pipe that went up the foot was strengthened – and a rod put into the other foot for further stability. The water ...
This plate is valuable to the family that owns it, and did not require expensive invisible repair in order to fix it durably and inconspicuously. The missing part of the rim, as well as smaller chips, was filled with a color-matched optical epoxy, and then touched up to match the decorations. Such repairs are generally visible from closer than two feet, but even at close range they look neat and professional and do not distract the eye from the meaning ...
This delicate dancer is, ironically, cast iron. She broke, as many figurines do, at the weakest, thinnest point, which can be something of a challenge to repair. We aimed to put it back together stronger than it was originally so that this will not happen again. Sometimes such pieces can be soldered or welded, but cast iron is not suitable for either – so we elected to install a thick 3/16” bolt going 2” up the leg. We left the ...
This 19th century Japanese vase is 12” tall and had a dent about 1-1/2” across from which most of the enamel was missing. We can restore cloisonne to a high degree of invisibility. Cloisonne is constructed on copper vessels onto which thin copper or silver, or sometimes gilded, wires are soldered. These wires create the cells, or cloisons, that are filled with crushed colored glass that is then fused into the enamel that covers these pieces. The final step, not ...
Many of the objects are not “valuable” in a standard way – in fact we see this supposed “value” vary widely over the years – following the fashion of the art market. Value is often defined by the importance of an event – like a wedding or a birth – or by the importance of a person – a grandmother or ancestor. We often do not do expensive, invisible repairs on such pieces, but fix them durably and inconspicuously so that ...