Wooden Polychrome Sculpture Conservation Laboratory

The State Russian Museum collection numbers more than 6000 exhibits, that have various wooden supports. These are Old Russian polychrome sculpture from the iconostasis, collection of the carved Tsars' gates, decorative and brownie (house-spirit) carving, Old Russian plastic arts, artistic furniture, articles of people's life, Russian and Soviet sculpture.

By the 1960s conservation of works that had wooden carved supports was carried out episodically, as the condition of considerable quantity of monuments from the collection, especially that were brought in 50-60s, was extremely bad. First of all it concerned Old Russian sculpture, made in traditional way: carved wooden support, partial or solid pavoloka, priming (levkas), painting (tempera), gilding and silvering. Condition of this suffered group of monuments was caused by the Synod edicts (1722, 1727, 1832, 1835), that had been directed against volume (three-dimensional) cult images. Being fulfilled episodically and selectively conservation of the monuments, primarily of Old Russian polychrome sculpture, icon-painted images in icon-cases of Tsars' gates, was carried out by tempera painting restorers. In 1961 there was organized the wooden sculpture conservation department, that included conservation workshops of wooden polychrome sculpture, decorative gilt carving and furniture. To begin with the organization of this department was caused by a big quantity of monuments that made up the funds of various departments and their bad condition and artistic value. Even in the number of monuments that had been spared we have wonderful pieces of Old Russian plastic arts, which incarnated in Saints' images the oldest religious state with the utmost clear and complete form. The other reason lies in the fact that there is a great need in professional method of approach for conservation of works that have carved wooden supports. This newly established department was headed by I.M.Dubovik, who graduated from the Art and Industrial college (1954), one of the leading restorers of the State Russian Museum, expedition participant in North and Povolzhye districts. From these areas with her assistance there was brought a big quantity of wooden polychrome sculpture, decorative carving, that required urgent conservation. She also has trained many young restorers who started to work with her in newly founded department: Y.M.Chumandin, L.N.Prokhorov, G.A.Preobrazhenskaya, L.G.Lapin, M.D.Uryupin.

History of department developing from the standpoint of practical work, that is continuous in fact, could be divided into several stages. The first stage is entirely connected with conservation of big quantity of monuments, the condition of which is considered to be in very bad condition and demanded taking prompt action. This is the formation stage. Exactly on this stage the methods of strengthening the priming with paint film and gilding that are originally based on experience of tempera painting restorers and have old traditions, adapt to new conditions of the work on difficult volume form. This difficult stage concurred with growing interest to scientific conservation.

At this stage our workshop got into contact with research workers of the Hermitage, the Grabar Conservation Center, the All-Russian Conservation Scientific Research Institute and chemical laboratories workers.

Because of the bad conservation condition of some wooden sculptures made either in the beginning of the century, in 20-30s or modern ones we felt a necessity for searching for new materials and methods of wooden sculpture conservation. Thoughtless use of "raw" materials that had not been properly prepared, deplorably affected works safety and quite often led to the fact that the sculptor himself had to do up numerous cracks that had been made in the course of work by various insets, sometimes using materials unsuitable for wood (for instance, sculptor Suvorov used cement to do up the cracks in some sculptures). As a rule they go to ruin themselves and promote further enlarging of the cracks and forming of new ones.

The first stage is summed up by the laborious task of many years made by the restorers from the department that is occupied with conservation of monuments with numerous damages: it could be damages of wooden ground, levkas, pavoloka, paint film or gilding.

As mentioned above the Synod edicts against the 3-D images furthered bad condition of Russian polychrome sculpture, which after the edict being issued was stored in scarcely appropriate conditions. Following the conservation of that kind sculptures being returned to the churches had various losses and had to be renovated. Based on this source and some other known ones the department and laboratory workers carry out complex research of some Old Russian sculptures for the purpose of clearing up the question if the sculptures had kept in safe their primary look.