Kovács Petronella (szerk.): Isis - Erdélyi magyar restaurátor füzetek 6. (Székelyudvarhely, 2007)
Kiss Hédy: A Székely Nemzeti Múzeumban őrzött zászlók állapotfelmérése
applied a deep brown underpainting at the light and the white colours. This material did not flow or cause corrugations in the surface. At the same time, the brown shadings have preserved their original stability and freshness, which are so characteristic of the painting, that they actually determine its colours and shapes as a whole. The cleaning of the painting, the removal of the multilayered thick varnish and the overpaintings were made chemically with materials determined after tests with solvents. This was more complicated than usual since the original pigment layer was covered with different materials applied subsequently at five or six times. After cleaning, we found a better condition than expected: about 60% of the surface was excellently preserved apart from a few small worn areas, 30% was worn and 10% got mined or perished. Regrettably, the background painted with bitumen was preserved in a strongly worn condition owing to the conflagration it suffered in 1907 and the later improper treatments. The measures of the aesthetic reconstruction were determined after the documentation of the uncovered condition. The consolidation of the support, the conservation of the stretching edges, the movement of the huge canvas, its safe and mild re-stretching and its permanent placement in the Déri Museum in Debrecen needed thorough preliminary studies and planning. The concept focused, beside safety and quality, on the circumstance that these actions could be repeated several times without the slightest hazard. The tears and the deformities were consolidated with gluing up a new canvas and the shrinking caused by the strengthening of the edges in 1938 could partly be corrected at the first stretching. The new strengthening of the edges of the picture was made with a stripe of cloth impregnated with Beva 371, in which eyelets were fixed at every 5 cm. The strengthening tape was fixed at these eyes with 3x35 mm large screw-nails as it had proved useful at the Golgota painting. The stretcher was cleaned, disinfected and the comers were modified making beds for the new forked wedges that ensured the sufficient tightness. After the stretching and the wedging of the canvas, the painting was varnished. The retouching method was chosen according to the degree of damage of the given territory and the possibility of interpretation. The losses were treated with restraint. We developed the painting from step to step gradually approaching the preserved original. At a few places only deferring retouch of a neutral shade, naturally invisible retouching and, where it seemed justified, reconstmction was applied at larger losses that were significant from the respect of the interpretation of the composition. Besides, we intended to evade every treatment that would suggest perfection to avoid the mistakes of our predecessors. The restored painting of a size of nearly 30 m2 was placed beside the other two components of the trilogy, the Ecce Homo and the Golgota, in the Munkácsy room of the Déri Museum. The members of the team that carried out the restoration/conservation were: Erzsébet Béres, István Lente, Miklós Szentkirályi painting restorer artists; Sándor Szilágyi, Zoltán Hasznos photographers and Sándor Szilágyi Jr. conservator, wooden object restorer artist. Erika Vadnai Painting restorer artist and László Kriston physicist analysed the painting, and Katalin Sz. Kürti made the art historical researches. Miklós Szentkirályi Painting conservator artist Museum of Fine Arts Budapest Uwe NOLDT Wood deteriorating insects - monitoring, treatments and results The specialist of the Institut für Holzbiologie und Holzschutz in co-operation with the University of Hamburg and other institutions have recently launched a number of projects, which deal with the monitoring of wood deteriorating insects in buildings (open-air museums, churches, mills and castles) and in collections first of all in Germany and also in Latvia (National Museum, Riga) and Romania (Astra Museum, Nagyszeben). The overwhelming majority of the biological deteriorations can be traced back to building damages and building defects, in result of which the wooden materials become wet and deteriorating fungi and/or insects can settle. On our latitude, the most significant insects that deteriorate dry wood are house longhorn beetle (Hylotrupes bajulus), death watch beetle (Xestobium rufovillosum DeGeer) and book-worm (Coelostethus pertinax L.). They can be active for years and their large populations threaten the static load-bearing capacity of the building elements and can cause the crumbling of even the complete material of art objects made of wood. We also have to mention the group of broad-nosed bark beetles (Cossonidae), and the recently more and more frequently appearing wood deteriorating ants and the imported powderpost beetles (Lyctidae) especially the Lyctus Brunneus Stephens, which deteriorate the secondarily moistened wooden materials. The degree of the damage made by the insect larvae can be very different in wooden objects and in buildings. The evaluation of the damage caused by insects in the buildings of open-air museums was carried out with the so-called warning light system following the first preliminary observations and the evaluation of monitoring arrangements. The largely damaged buildings that certainly needed treatment were marked with red, yellow marked the medium deteriorated buildings and monitorings to be introduced, and green marked the buildings that had formerly suffered insect deteriorations or were free of damage. Blue was used to mark the buildings in which insect deteriorations could only be demonstrated at certain places in certain elements, yet monitoring was ordered here as well. The following procedures were applied at monitoring. Collections: museum keepers, students and colleagues standing before graduation weekly collected 83
