Chapter1.

C onservat i on a nd
Restorat i on

Je rry P odan y

Introduction

Perhaps it is in human nature to feel a sense of melancholy combined with awe when
we gaze upon ruins. Ancient fragments have, by chance or design, survived the passing
centuries far beyond our own options for longevity. Curiosity brings us to wonder how
they might have once looked, who made them, and for what purpose. And we ask:Can
any of this be retrieved?
he reception of the fragment is a complex issue. Our respect for historic evidence
and our desire to preserve it, whether for knowledge or as a romantic illusion, allow us to
engage with broken remains. But when the fragment is recognizably part of the human
form, our engagement oten shits to disgust. What Seymour Howard (2003, 30)calls
empathic discomfort triggers the desire to heal scars, to restore. Such complexities are
woven throughout the history of restoration. Two approaches, one to preserve as is and
the other to restore as we think it might have been, oten overlap and complement each
other, and are equally oten at odds. his duality makes it challenging to trace the evolution of restoration to conservation. One approach regards the remains of antiquity
as decorative embellishments or romantic stage settings. Another sees them as basic
raw materials to continue an ideal. And yet another approach perceives these objects
as evidence for historicisms restraint in support of authenticity. By tracing these parallel tracks it is also possible to trace how restorationand its more contemporary and
expansive counterpart, conservationhave responded (and now respond) to cultural
shits, contemporary fashions, and the dynamic world around us.
Restoration approaches have changed over time and have directly inluenced our
knowledge and perception of antiquity. Changes and additions to ancient sculptures,
almost always resulting in permanent alterations, relect shiting tastes and evolving knowledge. Jessica Hughes has called restored sculptures multi-authored, hybrid

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creations ... remodeled according to later cultural contexts and art historical trends
(Hughes 2011, 2). Even political and religious zeal add to the mix in which the classical
past is only one of the inluences shaping the hybrids form and future. Contemporary
theory in heritage conservation now requires that we consider all the values of an object,
including the historical value accreted to the object by its dynamic and multilayered
progression through time, which includes recent restorations.

Restoration in the Past

To consider how we might approach the conservation of a Roman sculpture today, we

must begin with the question of whether the sculpture is a recent archaeological discovery or has been previously restored. Why that makes a diference can be best understood
by irst considering a brief review of how ancient sculpture was dealt with in the past.
Secrecy, misleading claims, lack of documentation, and the repeated replacement
of earlier restorations all make tracing the history of restoration challenging. Much
of the evidence has been lost. However, the evolving path of restoration can be clariied through the examination of drawings, diaries, invoices, edicts, and, of course, the
sculptures themselves, as well as the countless restoration segments removed but not
destroyed.

From Antiquity to the Renaissance:

Raw Material and Homage
Reverence for artistic patrimony was evident in the maintenance of ancient objects
well before the Renaissance. One can ind early critical reviews of restoration, as in the
opinions of Pliny the Elder in 25 BC, who noted how a painting was ruined through a
botched cleaning efort:He [Aristides] also painted ... the Tragedian and a Child, in
the Temple of Apollo, a picture which has lost its beauty, owing to the lack of skill of the
painter to whom Marcus Junius as Praetor entrusted the cleaning of it (Plin. HN 35.36,
trans. Rackham). We must assume, given the volume of sculpture in the Roman Empire,
that restoration was a fully formed industry. As early as the irst century AD, Cassius Dio
(60.5) complained about the density of sculpture in Rome and referred to it as , a
crowd or mob. By the third century AD the number of statues in Rome has been estimated at over 500,000 among a population of 1.5million, a ratio of one sculpture for
every three citizens (Barr 2008, 44).
hroughout late antiquity and into the early medieval period, architectural and sculptural fragments were oten used as raw material for building and decorative projects.
Although lacking the prestige of textual remains, these sculptural fragments were valued for their symbolic connection to the once-great Roman Empire, and, for this reason,

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29

they were sometimes protected. heodorics removal of architectural fragments from

ruined sites to be built into new structures, for example, clearly has a dimension of preservation as well as politics (Brenk 1987). One might also consider the Roman Senates
declaration in 1162 that made it a capital ofense to damage the Column of Trajan.
With the rediscovery of antiquity in the Renaissance came an expansive growth in
collecting. At his death in 1637, Vincenzo Giustiniani let a collection of some 1,800
sculptures (Raggio 2005, 197). he growing incorporation of ancient artifacts as decorative elements in palaces and palazzi, oten to enhance the status of wealthy individuals,
began a division between those fragments that were treated as exceptional works of art
and those that were used as raw material.
he restoration of these collected objects increasingly became the norm in the sixteenth century. heir physical destiny depended directly on their degree of grazia (or
grace), deined as the perceived, sometimes assumed, visual rhythm and movement of
the object. In describing Lorenzettos arrangement of ancient fragments and sculptures
in Cardinal Andrea della Valles courtyard around 1525, Vasariwrote:

Within the courtyard he [Lorenzetto] arranged columns, antique bases and capitals,
and distributed around the basement piles of ancient fragments [carved with] stories. On an upper storey, beneath some of the larger niches, he made another frieze
made up of antique fragments; above these he placed statuesalso antique and of
marblewhich, although they were not intact, some headless or missing an arm
and some with no legs at all, that is all missing some portion, he never the less managed the whole thing very well, having had excellent sculptors replace all the missing
parts. And this is why other gentlemen, following this example, had many antiquities
restored. And it is true, these antiquities have much more grace when restored in
this manner, than have those imperfect trunks, or those limbsheadless or in some
other respect defective or incomplete. (Vasari [1568] 1912, 5:55)

In judging the fragment as defective and resolving this by completion, Lorenzetto

undertook the irst systematic restoration of ancient sculpture.
Even at this early date, however, the two discordant paths of restoration and conservation were present. Afew ancient fragments were recognized in the Renaissance as having grazia even in their incomplete state (though not because of it, which was a later
Romantic consideration). he Belvedere Torso, known since the 1430s, which inluenced artists from Michelangelo to today, is one of the best-known examples.
Expressions of dissatisfaction with poor restoration also continued, sometimes to
the point of suggesting, as Vasari did, that it would be better at times to reserve the
work of excellent masters half ruined, than to have them retouched by those who are
less able (quoted in Conti 2007, 39). Nonetheless it was the grazia and disegno (design)
of ancient fragments that the restorers of the sixteenth century desired to enhance, reinstate, and sometimes invent. Todays interpretive restraint was lacking, and little consideration was given to the fragments as historical documents. Fragments represented an
opportunity to continue an ideal in the form of what Seymour Howard (2003, 31)called
a circumspect homage to antiquity, even though the ideal changed many times due to
fashion, knowledge, and evidence.

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hat circumspect homage helps us understand why, when the mannerist artist
Benvenuto Cellini was presented with a fragmented ancient torso, he exclaimed that
the artist called upon him to serve. He did so from 1548 to 1550 by creating a wholly new
and invented object that depicted a young Ganymede with an eagle, now in the Museo
Nazionale del Bargello, Florence. It must be understood that those viewing the sculpture at that time recognized the Ganymede as Cellinis creation and not as a retrieval of
the fragments previous form. Cellinis homage was, in efect, a partnership between the
restorer and the viewer.

Seventeenth through Eighteenth Centuries:

Invention and the Sciences

By the early seventeenth century, restoration gained a degree of legitimacy through

a close link to antiquarianism. Even though the President of Antiquities for Rome,
Monsignor Francesco Bianchini, felt that restorations should be restricted to drawings, in some form or another restoration had become indispensible to collecting, displaying, and understanding ancient sculpture. Restorers sought to assure not only the
proper igural pose and proportions but also a connection to ancient mythology and
history. Restoration was both a physical and an intellectual activity, no longer simple
reconstruction but rather a vehicle for presentation and comment. Orfeo Boselli, in his
Osservationi della Scultura Antica (16421663), noted that the ability to do restoration
well was an activity for an enquiring mind and not as simplistic as many might assume
(quoted in Weil 1967, 86).
At this time two distinct reasons existed for collecting ancient sculptures, which
determined the approach taken by the restorer. he objects viewed as true works of
art and exhibited in loggias with other masterpieces (usually paintings), were restored
in an interpretive way. In contrast, those sculptural fragments destined to be incorporated into the general decor and gardens of palazzi were restored with less care and
more license. In such cases pastiches abounded, and Boselli was highly critical of these
creations (though he himself had done such work), likening the results to monsters
described in Horaces Ars Poetica (quoted in Weil 1967, 86).
An over-life-size marble igure discovered in the early eighteenth century, missing
its head, right arm, and parts of the feet, illustrates how most restorers of the period
harmonized their restorations with the ancient fragments. By 1704, the fragment had
already been restored and illustrated in the Raccolta di Statue Antiche e Moderne by
Paolo Alessandro Mafei and Domenico de Rossi (igure 1.2.1). Known irst in the house
of Carlo Carioli, it soon became part of the Albani collection. By providing the fragment with a helmeted head, right arm, and staf, the irst restorer presented the object
as Alexander the Great. It is understandable that the remains of an imposing sculpture
of high quality would be interpreted as a signiicant ruler, and portraits of Alexander
the Great had been known since the Renaissance from Hellenistic coins. Curiously,

Conservation and Restoration

31

Figure 1.2.1 Engraving of a statue of a god restored as Alexander the Great, 1704, Robert
van Audenaerde (Belgian, 16631743), 18 3/4 14 9/16 in. (Mafei and de Rossi 1704).

however, the missing head had been replaced with one from an ancient portrayal of the
warrior goddess Athena. his reused head was combined with an invented helmet, presenting the fragments new identity. Ater the statue entered the Saxony princely collections in Dresden, it was illustrated again by R.Leplat in 1733, with an added ig leaf and
spear-end rather than staf.
A robust antiquities trade existed in Rome at this time and provided perfect conditions for such completions. he Grand Tour made it possible for those of means to
acquire the inest antiquities, and those purchases created a restoration industry within
Italy with attendant brokers, middlemen, advisors, investors, laborers, and, of course,
scoundrels. he eighteenth century also saw the birth of archaeology and a further
expansion of collections, which ultimately led to the formation of public museums
such as the Palazzo Nuovo in 1734, the British Museum in 1753, the Uizi in 1765, and
the Louvre in 1793. hese public institutions promoted the idea of antiquities as more
than decorative objects and nurtured a more restrained attitude toward restoration.
Museums added to their responsibilities the stewardship and preservation of ancient
sculpture. In 1770, for example, Gaspare Sibilla was appointed the irst oicial restorer
of ancient sculpture for the Museo Capitolino and the Vatican Palaces and Gardens. His

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shop and staf were located within the Museo Pio-Clementino and, as such, deined an
important new aspect of museum practice.
Johann Joachim Winckelmann, through his 1764 work Geschichte der Knst des
ltertums (History of the Art of Antiquity), revealed that the majority of objects in collections were Roman copies of Greek originals and noted that they had been compromised by restorers. Winckelmann held that the mistakes of connoisseurs were oten due
to undiscovered restorations, and he encouraged detailed recording.
Restorations fell further under suspicion as they proved inaccurate when compared to the growing variety of artifacts and fragments being uncovered following the
mid-eighteenth century discoveries at Herculaneum and Pompeii. But ancient fragments were also seen to have a didactic value and were restored with that in mind.
Antoine-Chrysostome Quatremre de Quincy, for example, praised the full restoration
of the Aegina pediment igures, for which Bertel horvaldsen (17701844) had created
new elements in the ancient style to complete the fragmented group (Quatremre de
Quincy 1818, 82).
Although antiquarian interests and Winckelmanns insights changed the underlying
dictates of restoration in the eighteenth century, the deceit necessary for the practice
continued in one form or another until the nineteenth century, particularly for private
collections. In 1787, the restorer Vincenzo Pacetti needed an Apollo igure for a temple
commissioned by Marcantonio Borghese. None being at hand, he set about reworking
an ancient sculpture of Pan for the purpose.
Such guises were particularly attractive to British collectors. Viccy Coltmans study
of British neoclassicism between 1760 and 1800 describes how fragments of sculptures
were patched together for invention, like blank canvases (Coltman 2006). Indeed, many
of the Roman mythological igures in English country houses owe their identities to
eighteenth-century restorers.
As a result one sees again the two approaches continuing on parallel paths, propelled
by diferent interests:the collector, who preferred perfection and so encouraged restoration and invention, and the museum collections, whose curators were more inclined
toward an academic balance between the didactic and the documentary. In most cases,
restorers served both interests. But the published philosophies of prominent restorers
of the time were not necessarily applied in their workshops. here is a stark contrast
between Winckelmanns attempts to categorize style systematically and the restorers
work to assemble unrelated fragments into invented objects serving the desires of those
willing to pay the price. Indeed, one of those restorers was both befriended and admired
by Winckelmann:Bartolomeo Cavaceppi.
Ennio Quirino Visconti noted that Cavaceppi introduced an improved manner
to restorations, he adapted marbles which were completely disigured by their condition, restored the missing parts without removing any of the original, introducing a
new, more correct and truer method by which to return monuments to their antique
splendor (quoted in Conti 2007, 228). While this may be true, when compared to the
inventive freedom employed by earlier restorers, Viscontis own words reveal the desire
to return the objects to their perceived earlier splendor. he goal remained full

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33

restoration, which, in the hands of Cavaceppi and his apprentices, quite oten included
invention.
Cavaceppi employed a number of clever techniques to fool the viewers eye and camoulage additions. Despite Viscontis words, Cavaceppi would in fact oten dramatically
cut back the broken areas of ancient marble fragments, so that the joints between the
fragments and his additions would be located at strategic areas, such as drapery folds,
and would be further disguised. He let the ancient segments unpolished and textured
his restorations to create an illusion of authenticity. False breaks were oten chiseled into
the surfaces of both ancient segments and additions to further confuse the viewer.
Cavaceppi seems to have been successful in two quite distinct worlds:that of private
collections and that of public museums. In 1744, he was hired by the irst director of
the Museo Capitolino to restore the fragments of an antique red marble faun. By 1746,
he had added the missing sections of the faun in such a manner that, even today, close
examination of the striations and inclusions in the dark-red marble is necessary to
delineate his work from the ancient parts.
By his death Cavaceppi had amassed over 1,000 ancient marble fragments, along
with many engraved gems, coins, terracotta models, plaster casts, and molds. It is no
wonder that his studio was called the Museo Cavaceppi. But he was not unusual in
this. Vincenzo Pacetti also sought raw material from archaeological sites for his restorations and creations, particularly from the excavations of Hadrians Villa at Tivoli
and in the collections of wealthy families in Rome. Such material was abundant in the
late eighteenth century. For example, the marble feet, hands, and other sculpture fragments, recovered from the Pantanello (little swamp or bog in Italian) at Hadrians
Villa and then purchased by Pacetti, were surely intended for future restorations
(Ramage 1999, 83).
In comparison with earlier restorers, however, both Cavaceppi and Pacetti were seen
to be applying rigorous antiquarianism. Certainly Cavaceppi wanted to appear to be in
line with the latest philosophical thinking and Winckelmanns support suggests that he
was successful in this.
As progress was being made toward historical accuracy, propelled by the discovery of
new archaeological evidence and resulting advances in scholarship, the demand for the
removal and replacement of earlier restorations grew. Indeed the idea that restoration
was wholly unnecessary took on signiicant importance as illustrated famously by the
insistence of the renowned neoclassical sculptor Antonio Canova (17571822) that the
fragments of the Parthenon frieze sculptures at the British Museum not be restored. Yet
at exactly the same time, horvaldsen was praised for his imitative, in-the-style completion of the Aegina pedimental sculptures. Canova made no objection to horvaldsens
work, since he saw these pieces as having a didactic purpose rather than as perfect artistic exemplars in the category of the Parthenon igures.
All of this made the life of the restorer complex and somewhat schizophrenic. In 1787,
Carlo Albacini had let the torso of the Psyche of Capua unrestored (though interestingly its broken surfaces had been cut smooth in preparation for restorations). So as
not to mislead future scholars, no restoration was to be done unless it could be fully

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justiiable. And yet when Albacini was called upon to restore a Discobolus fragment
found in Tivoli around 1791 (now in the British Museum), he added an incorrectly
placed head that did not belong.

he Nineteenth through Twentieth Centuries:

Science and Compromise

he irst decades of the nineteenth century were pivotal for the shit from restoration toward less intervention. In 1820, the Pacca Edict restricted the export of artistic
treasures from Rome, and at that time members of the German philological school
combined their knowledge of ancient texts and Roman sculpture to seek better understanding of Greek originals. For them, previous restorations were obstructions that
should be removed. he distrust of restoration emerged in Britain through the Society
of Dilettanti, whose members expressed an interest in authenticity and exactness in
recording condition. Just as at the Royal Society of London, which was at the leading
edge of science and accurate observation, measurement was all-important. In Specimens
of Ancient Sculpture, Egyptian, Etruscan, Greek and Roman: Selected from Diferent
Collections in Great Britain (begun in 1799 and published in 1809), many of the engravings clearly illustrated restorations. In a publication of a marble bust in the collection of
Lord Egremont, Richard Payne Knight, who championed the Specimens project and felt
that restorations constituted fraud, commented:he head ... is now mounted upon a
cumbrous modern bust, from which we have delivered it in print, and from which we
could wish to see it delivered in the gallery (quoted in Redford 2008, 147). Clearly support of derestoration was on the horizon.
he previously mentioned fragment restored as Alexander the Great (igure 1.2.1)
relects these changes in attitude. he object was illustrated in an 1804 catalogue of the
Dresden collections of antiquities by Wilhelm Gottlieb Becker with the right arm and
spear shat gone and the joint in the middle of the torso clearly delineated (igure 1.2.2).
Although the head remained in place, the sculpture was now referred to as Bacchus,
relecting a more accurate interpretation of the body type.
Although this new treatment was partial, it illustrates the direction being espoused
by the Italian architect Camillo Boito, who promoted, as part of scientiic restoration,
the recognition of objects as both artistic and historic documents (Boito [1883] 2003).
In his Prima Carta del Restauro, Boito encouraged the removal of all restorations in
the treatment of buildings and monuments. Afull circle had been scribed in which restoration, once the way to heal disigurement, was now avoided and seen as the source of
disigurement.
In nineteenth-century Rome debates about restoration focused predominantly on
monuments and relected a desire to codify rules for practice. he results had a signiicant impact on the treatment of ancient sculpture. In 1807, Rafaello Stern stabilized the
side of the Roman Colosseum, relecting a respect for the fabric of the ruin through his

Conservation and Restoration

35

Figure 1.2.2 Engraving of a statue of a god restored as Alexander the Great, 1804, ater
Schubert (German, active 1700s), 15 7/8 12 1/16 in. (Becker 1804, pl. 18).

choice of materials and the functional form of the addition. In 181921 the restoration of
the Arch of Titus, started by Stern and completed by Giuseppe Valadier, not only integrated a diferent material from the original, but also simpliied that new material to be
distinguishable from the ancient parts. his approach soon found its way into the collections of Rome, such as the Villa Giulia and the Capitoline Museum, where Baroque
restorations, following Boitos advice, were being removed and then replaced by lat,
monochromatic, and sometimes recessed inills. hough some may see these works as
the irst purist restorations, they were not. hat distinction belongs to the Egyptian red
granite obelisk of Montecitorio, which Giovanni Antinori restored between 1789 and
1792. Pope Pius VI should be credited with this exemplary instance of forward thinking,
since he required that the additions be of plain stone with a lat surface and devoid of
any invented hieroglyphs (common in the earlier restorations of other obelisks around
Rome) so as to distinguish clearly the new work from the original parts (Collins 2000).
Romanticism in the mid-nineteenth century came to view the fragment as an
embodiment of purity and a source of melancholic loss. Sculptures that, despite inaccuracies of restoration, had gone unassailed for centuries and had served as touchstones
for developing art historical thought, were now reduced to the preferred (and assumed)
pure state of the fragment.

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By the end of the nineteenth century the practice of derestoration lared into a kind
of iconoclastic rage fed by the antiquarians search for truth, the insistence on material proof born from positivism, and the prominence of romanticism. Sculptures were
stripped of previous restorations, oten leaving behind no more than amputated forms.
In their resulting state, these could no longer accurately represent the ancient fragment,
given that they had been extensively recut and that their surfaces had been dramatically reduced through polishing during the restoration process. hese were permanent
changes that could not be altered, and the narratives presented by these amputated
forms were less archaeological than medical.
Despite this rush toward purity, compromises could be found. In a
mid-nineteenth-century photograph by Hermann Krone, made before the reinstallation of the galleries at the Dresden Albertinum (igure 1.2.3), the Alexander of igures 1.2.1 and 1.2.2 has been physically re-restored as a statue of Antinous in the guise
of Bacchus. he work was carried out by Emil Cauer the Elder between 1829 and 1832.
his time the transformation had been achieved by introducing a poor-quality plaster

Figure 1.2.3 Photograph of Antinous as Bacchus, 18858, by Hermann Krone. he

eighteenth-century restorations had been removed by Emil Cauer the Elder sometime
between 1829 and 1832, and a crude plaster head of Antinous has been attached, as well as a
restored marble arm holding an ofering vessel.

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37

interpretation of a portrait of Antinous and a marble restoration of the right arm, holding an ofering vessel.
At the closing of the nineteenth century, restoration gave way to responsible stewardship. In 1863, Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle, inspector of museums in Florence, emphasized conservation and stability over restoration. He encouraged restorers to carry out
experiments of completion and interpretation on copies of the originals and advised
that any additions to original fragments should be made easily distinguishable and neutral (Conti 2007, 32744).
In preparation of the new Albertinum Museum in Dresden, the Alexander sculpture, now Antinous/Bacchus, was again altered sometime between 1888 and 1894 (igure
1.2.4). he director of the Skulpturensammlung, Georg Treu, undertook an experiment
using the guidelines of Cavalcaselle. He modiied Cauers restoration by substituting
the previous plaster head with a plaster cast taken from an ancient bust of Antinous as
Bacchus in the British Museum (inv. no.1899). Treu altered the inclination and rotation
of the head to achieve a convincing placement. he well-recognized image of Antinous

Figure 1.2.4 Early twentieth-century photograph depicting the re-restoration carried out
between 1888 and 1894 by Georg Treu, director of the Skulpturensammlung, Staatliche
Kunstsammlungen Dresden. A plaster cast of a bust of Antinous in the guise of Bacchus
from the collection of the British Museum was altered to it the statue. All other restorations
have been removed.

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acted like the addition of an attribute to assign an identity to the ancient fragment.
Adhering to the new views on restoration, Treu also removed the restored right arm
added by Cauer only a few decades earlier.

he Twentieth Century:Restoration Becomes Conservation

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the restorer/cratsman was becoming the conservator, and studios were becoming scientiic laboratories. he late
nineteenth-century art historian Alois Riegl, who outlined a variety of values that a
monument might retain, gave far greater importance to the object as a witness to history
than previously ascribed. he objects were now primary documents to be read and to be
preserved with a range of values all worth attention (Jokilehto 1999, 215).
Derestoration continued well into the twentieth century. For example, although part
of the appeal of the Giustiniani marbles in NewYorks Metropolitan Museum of Art lay
in their restorations, curator Giesela M.A. Richter had most of the baroque restorations
removed in 1939. Her decision was meant to relect contemporary trends and to allow
more direct study of the pieces for her Catalog of Greek Sculptures (Raggio 2005, 201).
Even as late as the 1970s, restorations that had deined certain ancient sculptures
for generations were systematically removed. he Lansdowne Herakles, for example,
was stripped of its eighteenth-century additions in the spirit of modern archaeological inquiry (Podany 2003, 19). But this process revealed that the eighteenth-century
restorer, most likely Albacini, had done much more than replace missing limbs. He had
reworked much of the surface, resulting in ancient segments that were similar to, but not
exactly the same as, those existing when the igure was irst found. his example demonstrated that the objective spirit of scientiic investigation, resulting in the uncovering
of a pure fragment, unpolluted by previous interventions, was clearly an illusion. And
so in 1996 the restorations were again put back, in recognition not only of their historic
importance but also of the permanent changes that had occurred to the ancient fragments. Didactic labeling now reveals what was ancient and what was restored.
In the twentieth century, the parallel paths of restoration and conservation once again
emerged as a debate between aesthetics (art) and objective interpretations of observable
fact (science). he assumed objective distance of science came up short at the beginning
of the twentieth century when Riegels historic value turned out to be, in part, a visually subjective preference, fully susceptible to the tropes of Romanticism. he artistic
message and visual intent, which had previously been minimized somewhat by the art
historians and archaeologists overwhelming interest in materiality, once again vied for
the viewers attention.
In 1963, Cesare Brandi reintroduced aesthetic concerns into the discipline of restoration/conservation. In his book Teoria del Restauro, he gave artistic components primacy
over the material aspects of the object. he visual unity of the object became a leading
concern, and to combine objectivity with this aesthetic concern, conservators achieved
a clear visual distinction of the modern interventions from the original fabric through

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39

gestalt principles of perception. But these minimalist ills, whether monochromatic or

blended with short strokes of color, had their beginnings in the mid-nineteenth century
in the work of Valadier and Stern and even earlier with the demands of Pope Pius VI
concerning the restoration of the obelisk of Montecitorio.

The Power of the Restorer

he complex way in which restoration developed and then evolved into conservation is
more than a mere historic note. he various approaches have had a powerful inluence
on both the viewers and the objects. he results of the two paths have inluenced how
we value past restorations and understand their relationships to the ancient fragments.
Decisions to keep or remove these additions, like decisions to carry out an intervention,
must be carefully considered:what might be gained and lost, both at the time of the
intervention and well into the future? Some restorations have become so iconic that an
intense reluctance has formed around the question of their alteration. he sixteenth- to
eighteenth-century restorations of the Laocon group (igure 1.1.2) provide an example.
he history of the group is well rehearsed in modern literature, and a summary suices
to set the stage for considering the power of the restorer/conservator.
Well known ater its discovery in 1506, the Laocon group was restored several times
between the 1520s and 1727. Laocons missing arm was recreated in drawings, replicas,
wax, terracotta, and then inally marble. Although the proposed position of the arm was
suspected to be incorrect from the very beginning, it was accepted, because it completed
a preferred composition. Even Winckelmann observed that the more likely position of
the original arm, bent back over the head, would have detracted from the works beauty.
He thus knowingly gave his approval to an incorrect restoration and revealed a clear
preference for a compositional taste born of his era. In 1906, the ancient arm was found
and its position coincided with the earliest proposed reconstruction. Nonetheless, four
decades passed before it replaced the eighteenth-century restoration (igure 1.5.2). It is
likely that the iconic status of the group strongly inluenced the delay, irrespective of the
archaeological evidence. here can be no clearer evidence of the power of the restorer.
Even today, questions remain. Acompelling case can be made that early restorers incorrectly placed one igure and that it should be rotated and repositioned (Howard 1989);
however, doing so would undo the frontal formality and classical planigraphic composition so popular in the sixteenth century and so long-known. It is not clear whether this
repositioning will be implemented (see essay 1.5, Frischer). One is reminded of the fragment of an ancient torso restored as a statue of Alexander the Great now in Dresden and
illustrated above (igures 1.2.12):at some point it became clear that the object did not
represent Alexander, and surely it was obvious that the marble head, although ancient,
did not belong, nor was it even a male head; yet, the incorrect head was let in place for
almost 125years. he decision and actions of a restorer or conservator continue to have

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ramiications for the perception of an object long ater these actions might have proven
to be mistaken or fallen into disfavor.
Conservators today not only face the challenges of stabilizing new inds arriving from
the ield or new additions being made to museum collections, but also must assure that
the surviving evidenceboth on the surface and contained in the fabric of the sculptureis fully recorded and protected. Conservation professionals are dedicated to the
preservation of as many of the values presented by the object as possible, but this may
require a delicate balance between protection and accessibility, stabilization and nonintervention. Whatever must be done must also be well reasoned, allowing for as little permanent change to the object as possible, and must assure, to a reasonable degree, ease of
removal of any added parts or treatment materials. Such reversibility is essential since
each generation perceives the past diferently and has the capacity to alter the surviving
material evidence to meet the viewers tastes and presumptions. We are no diferent.

Today:Converging Paths
here has never been any lack of wonder when something that has lain buried for centuries comes to light again. he object carries with it a promise of illing in parts of the
past no longer available to us, of bringing us closer to another time. hese artifacts are
primary documents brimming with information, and we need only learn to read them.
Today, the respect for the amount of information such objects hold is magniied by the
knowledge we bring to them and by the analytical power that we have at our command.
here is no doubt that even stronger lenses for reading will be developed in the future.
Because of this, conservators in the twenty-irst century tread lightly when treating
ancient material. Conservators recognize that chemical and physical evidence is contained in the accretions or alteration layers and that the patina provides evidence of age
and the passing of time (see essay 2.6, Abbe). In a world where physical authenticity is
continually assailed by the availability of convincing alternative realities, such proof is
an anchor for the actualities of the past.
We are likely today to leave a fragmented sculpture just as it was found. Computer
modeling, like Cavalcaselles plaster copies, ofers us a myriad of noninvasive alternatives to view how something might have looked without having to impose a direct and
permanent change on the object itself (see essay 1.5, Frischer). We have less need to
restore and greater appreciation for the efects of time. hat is not to say that fragments
that belong together should not be reassembled, nor that encrustations that hide the
form of an object, its decorative surface, or subtle inscriptions, should not be reduced.
hese actions can be undertaken with prudence and skill to reveal both evidence and
subtleties with a resulting gain of essential information. Today the hybridity of the
ancient sculpture comes from the combination of the object as historic document and
as a work of art. We ind in these two ingredients the familiar paths that we have been

Conservation and Restoration

41

following for centuries. But today the conservator seeks to balance the paths, which
appear to be converging into a single direction.
To this end, the Dresden Antinous in the guise of Bacchus (igures 1.2.34) now stands
as an assembly of surviving ancient fragments with the previous restorations documented but not attached (igure 1.2.5). Reportedly an accident during the return of the
sculpture to Dresden ater the Second World War let the object once again fragmentary,
and a recent 2008 re-restoration allowed scholars and conservators to consider how best
to present the fragment in the twenty-irst century. It was decided not to incorporate
the plaster head added by Treu (missing since the war) but to present only what ancient
fragments remained. Where necessary, inills unify the object but are clearly discernible
as modern additions. he igure is labeled statue of a god, possibly Antinous, informing the viewer that there is still much to learn.
Eugne Viollet-le-Duc, a French architect and theorist of the nineteenth century,
once described restoration as bringing a building to a state in which it may never have

Figure 1.2.5 Statue of a god (Roman, AD 100200) in the collection of the

Skulpturensammlung, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden ater the most recent conservation treatment.

42

Jerry Podany

existed (Viollet-le-Duc [1854] 1990, 195). Irrespective of how minimal the treatment
of an ancient object is, this statement proves true if taken literally. Whether an object
is broken or reassembled, let with accreted dirt on its surface or cleaned, minimally
repaired or fully restored, the inevitable result is a new state, one in which it has never
existed before. he conservators aim therefore is to manage change and assure accessibility while protecting the original fabric, intent, and evidence of age.
Modern technology has contributed signiicantly to our preservation eforts. We
no longer need the welders torch or the foundrys molten metal to assemble the fragments of an ancient bronze. Todays adhesives are suiciently strong to avoid the holes
in ancient fabric that would once have been needed for the screws and bolts securing
fragments to an iron armature. Modern high-strength alloys provide structural support
and stability with less disturbance of the ancient fabric. Lasers and microscopes provide
tools to assure that necessary cleaning will not harm either ancient surface or preserved
evidence. In short, we have little excuse to do harm and every opportunity to expand our
knowledge while preserving our past.
We have come to accept the change and loss that accompany the passage of time. And
we see the fragment as perhaps something greater, or at least with broader meaning,
than the whole. he conservators attention is now placed on treatments that stabilize
the object and assure future accessibility. In all, this seems to be both a wise and productive path forward, since we know that Orfeo Boselli, a sculptor and restorer of the seventeenth century, was wrong when, in describing his joining technique, he wrote:Place
two good clamps with melted lead, and beat them in, and thus secure it for eternity
(quoted in Weil 1967, 96). Dynamic fashions and tastes guide the world of restoration
and the eforts of conservation. We are committed to pass on what we ind, enhanced by
greater knowledge, not diminished by permanent and unwanted changes.

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