Paper Conservation: Decisions & Compromises

Conservators’ Investigation of Chinoiserie in Wilanow Palace
Marzenna Ciechanska |Dorota Dzik-Kruszelnicka | Elzbieta Jezewska |
Joanna Kurkowska
Faculty of Conservation and Restoration of Works of Art, Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Poland
In the collection of Wilanow Palace there is a
large and varied set of Chinese paintings and
woodcuts on paper dating from the second half
of the eighteenth century and the turn of the
nineteenth century, which are unique in Poland
and which functioned as decorative wallpaper
in the palace. They were mostly used as wall
decorations for the Chinese Suite located in the
central part of the palace. This suite, which consists
of five rooms and a small hallway, was furnished
by the contemporary palace owner, Count
Stanislaw Kostka Potocki at the beginning of the
nineteenth century. After the Second World War,
during conservation works, eighteenth century
frescoes were discovered in the Chinese Suite.
A decision was made to restore the eighteenth
century décor, whereas Chinese decorative elements
were taken off the walls and underwent
conservation. From then on they have been kept
in the palace museum’s storage. Fifty-five objects
of different kinds have been preserved. Some of
them are typical export Chinese wallpapers and
paintings, while others are traditional Chinese
folk artworks which had a ceremonial or decorative
function and were used as wallpaper.
The fashion for chinoiserie in Poland, like in
the other countries of Europe, had flourished
from the seventeenth century. Chinese tapestries
were mentioned as early as in the first preserved
inventory of Wilanow Palace made in 1696.
Wallpaper from China was very fashionable in
Poland in the eighteenth century. Unfortunately,
it has only been preserved in three palaces. It is
not known precisely when the decorations of the
Wilanow complex were brought to Poland. Both
Duchess Lubomirska, who was Count Potocki’s
mother-in-law and the former owner of Wilanow
(she bequeathed the palace to her daughter and
son-in-law in the late 1890s), and Count Potocki
were avid collectors of Chinese artwork. The
Chinese Suite was described in detail in the inventory
of the palace made in 1832. It is known
from the previous inventory made in 1793 that
Chinese wallpaper had been hung on the walls
of different rooms. The so-called Chinese Suite
was furnished by Stanislaw Kostka Potocki at the
beginning of the nineteenth century.
The set of decorations can be divided into two
basic groups. The first one consists of nine panels
on yellow paper, six of which are medallion,
print-room style wallpapers depicting porcelain
and silk production, while the remaining ones
are: a representation of a Chinese lady and woodcuts.
It is not currently known in which rooms
they were hung. The second group comprises 46
individual paintings which were separated from
the surrounding wallpapers when they were being
taken off the walls or they were stuck onto
the wall individually or mounted on stretcher
bars.
This collection can be divided into several
thematic groups. Some of these objects are fragments
of export wallpapers dating from the eighteenth
century, which are genre works and landscapes
depicting scenes of everyday life of the
Chinese people. Others are separate, full-length
figure images of Chinese women or woodcuts depicting
groups of women with children indoors
or outdoors. The set also contains small New Year
woodcut prints and others which are thematically
or stylistically different from the rest.
The whole set was covered by a research and
conservation programme aimed to describe the
objects in historical, iconographic and technological
terms as well as to determine their state
of deterioration, develop conservation methodology
and carry out a model conservation of two
selected objects. On this poster, we present the
results of identification tests conducted on two
selected objects which were made by using significantly
different techniques.
Preserved documents relating to the history of
the first of the analysed objects (Fig. 1) do not
provide answers to questions that have been
raised. Information contained in the three existing
inventories are too general to be associated
with a specific object, and the documentation
concerning conservation works conducted
after the war is incomplete. Establishing the
ICOM-CC Graphic Documents Working Group Interim Meeting | Vienna 17 – 19 April 2013
117