Paper Conservation: Decisions & Compromises

Fig. 1: A woman with two children, Wilanow Palace Museum, photo by T. Rizov-Ciechanski
time when the object was made and brought to
Wilanow as well as its location within the palace
turned out to be an incredibly difficult task.
The object is a long panel with a representation
of a nianhua type, bordered with an imitative
nineteenth century hand-painted decoration
depicting vases and a valance. In the centre of
the composition is a lady clad in an outfit from
the Ming era with two boys. This is a popular
theme in Chinese New Year prints representing the
wish to have many prominent sons. It was made
in China, probably by using a hand-primed,
woodcut technique of printing contour lines or,
as Prof. Feng Jicai from the Feng Jicai Literature
& Art Institute of Tianjin University in China has
suggested, it was entirely painted. Its dimensions
are 251x83 cm. In the Wilanow collection there
is a similar separate object with dimensions of
158x64 cm. Such an attribution required to be
supported by complementary technological and
iconographic research.
Stratigraphic studies were carried out in four
different locations (Fig.1.IV-VII). The analysis
showed that the number of layers ranges from
four to nine, whereas the object’s thickness
from 0.266 to 0.824 mm (1.034 mm with the
canvas layer). An analysis of fibre composition
showed that both the paper which constitutes
the surface of the Chinese object and the first
lining layer were made of paper mulberry (Broussonetia
Papyrifera). It was probably xuan zhi (xuan
paper). The second lining layer consists of paper
mulberry, Edgeworthia gardineri, and rice straw.
It was all stuck on 10 sheets of handmade paper
made from flax fibres and connected by means of
joining overlapping edges with starch paste. This
paper is evenly covered with a yellow layer which
has been identified as a mixture of glutin glue
and litharge, where the painted layer was directly
applied. The object was relined on canvas and
mounted on the stretcher.
Preliminary determination of binders was performed
by microchemical methods. Starch was
identified as a binder between subsequent layers
of paper and the canvas with Lugol’s iodine test.
The lack of stains after the application of Sudan
Black B excluded the possibility of using oil binders
or natural resins. Stains that appeared after
using Ponceau S, which indicates the presence
of proteins, might have been caused by starch
penetrating the adjacent layers because of gravity
and material porosity. Results obtained by
using these methods, especially with regard to
the layers where calcium carbonate or gypsum
ICOM-CC Graphic Documents Working Group Interim Meeting | Vienna 17 – 19 April 2013
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