Kovács Petronella (szerk.): Isis - Erdélyi magyar restaurátor füzetek 13. (Székelyudvarhely, 2013)

Puskás Katalin: Kísérlet a vörösbomlásos bőr kezelésére, avagy epizód egy 19. századi fotótartó mappa restaurálásából

using their own materials along with their presentation in their fully original state. This does not permit the degree of repair which has already been performed on this particular work. These two viewpoints are seemingly at variance with one another.

The baroque wall painting uncovered in the Bíró- Giczey house in Veszprém had in many places deteriorated to the limits of restorability over the last decades. The present paper discusses first and foremost issues to do with making good the decay. We performed the restoration on the basis of the minimal intervention - maximum results principle. We attempted to use as little in the way of materials, chemicals, and work as we could. The goal was to uncover and show the original decoration. Ten conservators worked in such a way in the four rooms that by employing the principles decided on beforehand they created a spectacle that was completely unitary.

In the first half of the 18th century, Márton Padányi Bíró built a single-storey house in the Veszprém Castle District. Canon István Giczey added an upper storey in 1772. In four rooms in this part, baroque paintings were found. All four rooms are the so-called Gartenzimmer. Through architectural frames painted in an illusionistic way, we may look out upon landscapes or parks of idyllic beauty. The sky appears on all of the ceilings. On the ceiling of the ceremonial hall, we see, in addition to sky, a number of mythological scenes also.

The decoration and the ‘artistic painting’ were made using the same - secco - technique. This enabled the artists to employ trompe d’oeil elements. Baroque plasters consist of a mixture of crushed limestone and lime wash, with additives of plant origin. The compositions on the walls had been drawn using a pencil or piece of charcoal. On infrared photographs, sketches in pencil could be seen beneath the figures on the ceilings. To the layer of fine plaster covering the plasterwork, a thin layer of pale pink paint had been applied, although not on the ceiling of the ceremonial hall. On this, painting in tempera had been performed, most probably with the use of egg as a binder.

On the ceiling of the ceremonial hall, there was no preparatory layer of paint. The base hues, the so-called ‘dead colours’ (Totenfarben), were applied to the roughly worked surface straightaway. The modelling layers were then put on. The paint layers on the ceiling were thicker than those on the walls. In all the rooms, the painters used very expensive pigments, e.g. malachite, and covered very large surfaces with them. On the ceilings of all the rooms, oil gilding was used, and in the bedroom silvering also.

When we took charge of the rooms, they were painted white with emulsion paints. Under this there were other, strongly attached, paint layers. Most of the repainting we carefully scraped off using a scalpel. The thin layer adhering directly to the surface of the plaster we removed with the help of a glass pencil and special erasers. Uncovering performed with erasers also served to clean surfaces very well, but in such a way that the patina with the wealth of information it contained remained on them undamaged.

We fixed the wall paint uncovered by repeatedly applying to it a 0.25% solution of methyl cellulose. The plaster parts that had come away we re-attached using the injectable plaster Vapo Injekt 01. Crumbling plaster and paint we made firm using Porosil ZTS silicate emulsion before sticking them back on the wall.

Retouching was done using aquarelle. The larger gaps, those which already could not be retouched, we painted in colours that fitted in.

Translated by Chris Sullivan

Brigitta Mária Kürtösi

Original (and) Copy. The Making of a Copy

of a Roman Mosaic Floor from the Villa Romana

Baláca and Investigations into the Original

The Villa Romana Baláca, situated outside Nemesvámos on a site of approximately 9 ha marked by three springs known to the Romans already on what was once a large landed estate in Pannónia, is so far the most significant Roman-age excavations site in the Balaton Uplands area. During excavations conducted on the territory of Nemesvámos-Balácapuszta in the early 20lh century, between 1906 in 1909, four mosaic floors in Roman Residential Building No. 1 were uncovered. Room 20, the main building’s apse-ended tablinum with a floor area of 70 m2, must have been an imposing reception room. Its colourful mosaic floor was removed from its original site in 1925 under the direction of the archaeologist Gyula Rhé. After a long break, archaeological excavations began again, from 1976, as well as work that expertly evaluated and presented the findings at Baláca. At the time the mosaic floor of Room 20 was discovered, namely during an excavation performed in 1907, damage to it could be seen: changes in the surface, missing pails, and scorch marks. Having been cut up, the mosaic was placed onto 46 reinforced concrete slabs. Later, with the retention of these rigid supports, it was installed in the foyer of the Hungarian National Museum and later on in the lapidarium there. On the basis of designs made by Gyula Hajnóczi, a protective roof was erected above Baláca’s Building No. 1 in 1984. After this, the three other mosaic floors removed from that building were taken back to Baláca and put back in their original places there. The place of the fourth mosaic floor, however, remained empty.

At the initiation of the Veszprém County Museums Directorate, a copy of this Roman mosaic floor from Baláca could be made within the framework of a project aimed at developing the Baláca Villa farm from the cultural and touristic points of view. One year in all was available for the performance of this work.

During the making of the copy, importance was attached to the achievement of authenticity in the fields of materials and aesthetic effect. The aim aesthetically was not to reproduce the mosaic’s present condition, featuring the marks made over approximately 1700 years by

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