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11 October 2019
Restoration of the painting Holy
Rus by Mikhail Nesterov (No.J-1850, size 233 cm x 375 cm) has
compled in the Russian Museum’s Oil Painting Conservation Studio.
Holy Rus
first went on public display at the artist’s personal exhibition in 1907.
Nesterov believed that this painting and, in fact, all his art, would bring
peace to Russian society, which was at the time shaken by massive unrest.
The painting was purchased on the spot for the museum of the Imperial
Academy of Fine Arts. In 1921 Holy Rus was forwarded into the custody
of the Russian Museum, where it was afforded a place of honor in the main
exposition. In the late 1920s, as pressure on religion increased, the
painting was removed from display and relegated to the archives. Holy Rus
would remain there until the late 1980s, when the museum put it back on
permanent display.
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Opening a special
art exhibition about restoration of painting. |
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20 September 2019
The Russian Museum's
Laquered Furniture Conservation Studio has completed restoration of
Peter the Great's wooden chair
(LD-374), part of the
permanent exhibition in the Office room of the Cabin of Peter I (6
Petrovskaya Embankment, St.Petersburg).
The chair was made in
the style of English library chairs of the 18th century, and known
as a reading chair. One of their unique features was that readers
were to sit on them backwards, with their front facing the chair's
spine. To the chair's back was attached a collapsible desk on which
the books rested. The spine of Peter I's chair has an open mortise
for such a desk to be attached. The attachement, however, had
already been lost by the early 20th century...>>>
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Restorer Maksim Koshkariev |
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12 September 2019
The Old Russian Painting Conservation Studio is continuing
its complex restoration of the 16th-century icon The
Miracle of St. George and the Dragon.
The icon came to the Russian
Museum in 1937 from Leningrad Oblast’s State Museum Collection. It was
previously kept in the Church of St. Nicholas the Miracle Worker in
Soginitsy, Leningrad Oblast.
Earlier attempts at
restoration had covered the entire image with overpainting. In 1970,
restorer Irma Yarygina managed to remove some of the layers of dark
varnish and additional paint from the original work.
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Restorer Ignat Ratnikov |
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8 July 2019
Complex
restoration is in progress on the painting Assumption of the
Theotokos by Ivan Belsky (87.5 cm x 52 cm, Inv. No. J-7921). The
Oil Painting Conservation Studio undertook the task in the run-up to
the artist’s solo exhibition, which the Russian Museum is planning
for the end of 2019.
Russian artist Ivan
Belsky (1719-1799) was a descendant of the Belsky family of artists,
prominent in the 17th and 18th centuries. He
was highly acclaimed for his historical paintings and decorative art
for theatres.
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Oil painting
restorer Natalia Romanova
clears the original paintwork of yellowed varnish and more recent layers of
paint. |
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24
April 2019
In a challenging new project, the
historical decorated frame (No. 4704) of the 1834 painting The Death
of Inessa de Castro by Karl Bryullov (oil on canvas, 213 cm x 290.5
cm, No. J-5085) goes into conservation.
The seven conservators on
the project team represent three Workshops of the Russian Museum’s
Art Conservation Department: Irina Vesnina, Marina Ilyukhina,
Tatyana Maslova, and Melkhola Kozlova specialize in conservation of
carved and gilded wooden objects, Yuri Makarov and Alexander
Derevenskov come from the section focusing on lacquered furniture
conservation, and Vitaly Kopyakov is a restorer of carved icons and
wooden sculptures. Following a tentative visual survey of the frame,
the conservators on the team are now in a position to draw some
preliminary conclusions about its condition...
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Conservators Irina Vesnina, Tatyana
Maslova, Marina Ilyukhina and Melkhola Kozlova removing prior conservation
patches.
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25 March 2019
The department
has completed the first phase of conservation on a small
17th-century double-sided icon, one side of which depicts the
Anointing of Christ in the house of Simon the Leper, while the other
shows the Washing of Feet (No DRZ-2391). The icon arrived in the
Russian Museum on December 2, 1912 from the Joseph Volokolamsk
Monastery of the Assumption, founded in 1479.
There is a special name for such
small double-sided icons painted with tempera on primed canvas
rather than on wood: tablet. Tablets are usually very thin and
fragile, and small as well. Many of them have been restored and
repainted several times.
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Old Russian painting
restorer Mikhail Bushuyev
completes the restoration of a 17th-century icon. |
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28
February 2019
The Russian Museum’s
Plaster and Stone Sculpture Conservation team has completed
restoration of a marble bust of Empress Catherine II of Russia (No.
SK-215) crafted by an unknown sculptor in the late 18th century.
The sculpture, broken into two pieces,
arrived for restoration in 2002. Sizable fragments of the face,
hair, attire, and décor were missing. There were multiple places
where parts of the marble had broken off, and much of the marble was
badly scuffed. The pedestal was missing, and the entire surface was
soiled with adherent grime.
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Restorer of stone and plaster sculpture
Bella Toporkova fine-finishing the restoration of missing parts of the
marble surface. |
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19 February
2019
The complex
restoration of the precious top plate of the
coffin of Saint Alexander
of Svir (No. BK-2891), created in 1644 by the engravers of the
Silver Chamber in the Moscow Kremlin, is now complete.
This restoration was part
of exhibit preparation for an exhibition entitled The Autumn of
the Russian Middle Ages, opening in the Benois Wing of the
Russian Museum on February 21, 2019.
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12 February
2019
The restoration
of the carved gilded frame of the painting Full-Dress Portrait of
the Daughters of Emperor Nicholas I, Grand Duchesses Maria
Nikolayevna (1819-1876) and Olga Nikolayevna (1822-1892)
by Timofey Neff (1805-1876) was completed earlier today.
The Russian Museum’s Conservation
Commission decided that the frame should be fully restored in
preparation for the exhibition Nicholas I. In view of the many
challenges this conservation task presented, a multi-expert team was
hand-picked from various specialized workshops of the Russian
Museum’s Art Conservation Department: Irina Vesnina, Marina
Ilyukhina, and Melkhola Kozlova from the section for conservation of
gilded wooden carving, Vitaly Kopyakov from the section for carved
icons and wooden sculptures, and Yuri Makarov from the lacquered
furniture section.
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Conservator Maria Ilyukhina
of the gilded wooden carving conservation section puts finishing touches on
the levkas primer used on carved décor replacement pieces. 2019 |
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12 February
2019
Conservation has been completed on the painting Ceremonial
Session of the State Council on 7 May 1901 (400 cm x 877 cm) by
Ilya Repin to prepare it for shipping to an exhibition in the
Tretyakov Gallery.
The conservators then carefully freed the edges of the canvas from
the metal
staples that
held it on the planks of the stretcher. The stretcher was removed
and dissembled. At some point in the past, the worn edges of the
canvas had been reinforced with strips of linen canvas, but during
the intervening years the edges had relapsed into an unsatisfactory
condition. In some parts, the conservation adhesive used in the past
to glue the new strips onto the original canvas had disintegrated
beyond repair, and the conservation strips had begun to peel off.
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The painting Ceremonial Session of the State
Council on 7 May 1901 (400 cm x 877 cm) by Ilya Repin being rolled onto its
wooden shipping cylinder. |
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1 February 2019
Restoration completed on Portrait of
Grand Duke Michael Pavlovich by George Dawe (No. J-459)
A meeting of the Russian Museum’s Conservation Commission in mid-2018 came
to a consensus that this painting was no longer display-worthy and had to be
restored.
The Russian Museum received this painting from Dmitry Ivanovich Tolstoy in
1904.
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Oil painting restorer Natalia Romanova
working on George Dawe’s canvas. |
15 January 2019
Restoration of the painting Portrait of Nicholas I of Russia
by Vasily Golicke (No. J-3490) has been completed.
At one of its meetings in mid-2018, the Russian Museum’s Conservation
Commission decided to hand this canvas over to the oil painting conservation
team for restoration.
The Russian Museum received this painting by Vasily Golicke (1802-1848) from
the Sheremetyev Palace Museum in 1931.
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Oil painting restorer
Natalia Romanova
working on Vasily Golicke’s Portrait of Nicholas I. |
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