Abstract
The polychrome wooden interior from Damascus (1802–1803 CE) was purchased by Budapest’s Museum of Applied Arts in 1885. The wooden panelling is ornamented in the ‘ajami technique using gesso relief with painted, metal-gilded and glazed surfaces in various colours and patterns. Based on ongoing conservation work, this paper presents the room’s history and findings concerning the materials and manufacturing techniques used to make it. It shows that red lead, vermillion, smalt, indigo, lead white, verdigris, and different arsenic sulphides were used as pigments. Presumably, aloe was used in the orange, verdigris in the green glaze and cochineal in the red lake. Collagen, ovalbumin and gums were identified in the paint as binders. Although the appearance of the originally brilliant and matte surfaces cannot be recovered, after restoration the interior will still be a highlight of MAA’s planned Islamic Museum.
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Notes
- 1.
Letter from the Mawe and Co., MAA Archive, 172/1885
- 2.
Letter from the MAA to Mawe and Co., MAA Archive, 172/1885.
- 3.
Letter from the MAA to Mawe and Co., MAA Archive, 256/1885.
- 4.
Letter from the MAA to Mawe and Co., MAA Archive, 308/1885.
- 5.
Letter of Mawe and Co., MAA Archive, 49/1886.
- 6.
The survey was carried out by Erzsébet Vadászi, curator of the MAA, József Balázs, Mária Fodor, Mária Szilágyi and Petronella Kovács Mravik wooden restorers MA.
- 7.
Letter of Mawe and Co., MAA Archive, 269/1885.
- 8.
Personal communication with Scharrachs.
- 9.
The investigation was carried out by József Balázs wooden objects restorer, National Centre for Conservation and Conservation Training (NCCCT).
- 10.
The investigation of the arsenic-containing layers was carried out with a Thermo Scientific DXR Raman microscope at 780 excitation by Zsuzsanna Márton and Ivett Kisapáti on cross sections of embedded micro samples. The XRD measurements were performed by István Sajó on powder samples scratched from the paint layers, with a Philips PW 3710/PW 105 type Bragg-Brentano diffractometer using Cu Kα radiation, graphite monochromator and proportional counter
- 11.
It is a good evidence for this that the samples of the first yellow layer, covered with two other paint layers, did not contain any arsenolite, but samples from the uncovered part of the same paint contain arsenolite as well.
- 12.
Very fine smalt, Kremer pigment; and smalt of unknown origin from the pigment collection of the NCCCT.
- 13.
The investigations were carried out by Attila Lajos Tóth and Petronella Kovács Mravik with a HEOL JSM25 SEM/Brucker Quantax EDX, and by Dániel Károly with a Hitachi S-4700 FE-SEM/EDX, in the frame of his BA studies at the University of Szeged, supervisor: Dr. Ákos Kukovecz, associate professor.
- 14.
Restorer student: Attila Bodó, supervisor: hon. professor Petronella Kovács Mravik DLA
- 15.
Restorers: Petronella Kovács Mravik and Mária Fodor.
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Kovács Mravik, P. et al. (2019). A Polychrome Wooden Interior from Damascus: A Multi-method Approach for the Identification of Manufacturing Techniques, Materials and Art Historical Background. In: Nevin, A., Sawicki, M. (eds) Heritage Wood. Cultural Heritage Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11054-3_7
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