Just a year ago, a priceless collection of art at Calcutta's Grand Victoria Memorial was at risk of being lost forever. The brilliant hues of many of the paintings were hidden under thick dirt, canvases were cracked or peeling, and frames were falling apart.
Anymore. A state-of-the-art program to salvage the memorial's 400 oil paintings and 1,000 watercolors is progressing well toward restoring the once-decayed works to their original glory. Among the restored paintings is one by the famous 18th-century painter John Zoffany. Claude Martin and his friends George Farrington's evocative oil Murshidabad.
The restore program was not a hastily executed cut and paste operation. This was a grueling three-month exercise undertaken by a team of 11 British restoration experts, led by Patrick Lindsay and Jane Macausland, and supported by a group of local restoration experts. With a budget of approximately $4 million and sophisticated equipment, including ultraviolet tube panels, the results were impressive.
(Left) View of Daniell's fort and Farrington's Murshidabad: restored.
Nineteen priceless oil paintings and about 200 watercolors by European artists of the 18th century, which were badly damaged, have already been salvaged and saved from further ruin. It was a challenging task. When the movement began, many of the paintings appeared unrecoverable thanks to what memorial restorer Mainak Shankar Ray described as “quack restorations” by previous restorers.
Indiscriminate overcoating, poor retouching work, and failure to remove dust from the canvas before retouching only further damaged the already rotting painting. According to Lindsay, “Surface dust was not removed prior to retouching, nor was varnish removed. The retouching was incorrectly matched without knowledge of the paint layers.”
Touch-up in progress Claude Martin For example, a few years ago, commemorative restorers further damaged the painting. More than 60% of the canvas was indiscriminately painted over, hiding the original green and blue colors, and the small drawings in the painting were also completely hidden. What's worse is that the canvas has developed terrible cracks. Today, a new team has restored the painting to its original appearance and proudly displays it in the Memorial Gallery.
farringtons Murshidabad Another unfortunate victim of a “quack” repaint job. The blue sky above had turned black with soot. When the research team began cleaning the surface with a special solvent, they found dust embedded deep into the canvas. It took four months to excavate the boat and mosque from beneath the dirt.
(From top) Fleming’s Cheetah, Chittagong’s Gial, and Peacock.
Thomas Daniel's RestorationView of Thana Fort near Bombay, MaharashtraCovered in layers of dirt, it wasn't easy either. “We had to use needles and scalpels and apply solvents to scrape off the dust without disturbing the painting,” Ray said.
In addition to oils, 212 watercolors from the precious Fleming collection, mainly studies of Indian wildlife, also underwent groundbreaking plastic surgery. The restoration process was elaborate: Fleming's Peacock, cheetah, crocodile and Chittagong Gial First, it was placed in a tray filled with water to remove the acid, then carefully bleached, and then imported potato starch gum and tissue paper were used to make the folds even.
However, maintaining restored paintings is not easy because the high humidity in the city distorts the canvases. But even that will no longer be a problem if you plan to store your restored paintings in an air-conditioned Calcutta gallery.
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