Kovács Petronella (szerk.): Isis - Erdélyi magyar restaurátor füzetek 20. (Székelyudvarhely, 2020)
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Vincenc Melka (1834-1911) began his art studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and continued his education in Vienna and Dresden. He moved to Cluj-Napoca after 1870, where he lived and worked until his death in 1911. The contrasting change of his painting style is connected to the settling in Transylvania, when he switched from early historical compositions to themes depicting nature, with an emphasis on ethnographic and hunting scenes. Due to his outstanding drawing skills the University of Cluj-Napoca from 1879 to 1910 employed him as an art teacher. Melka took part on painting trips, participated in aristocratic hunts in the Retezat and Gurghiu Mountains in the company of Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria, depicting the Crown Prince, hunting scenes and the beautiful landscapes of Transylvania. He often received orders from members of the Transylvanian nobility and various public institutions. The large oil painting on canvas presents a full-length portrait about a young man dressed in uniform in an interior that opens onto a balcony in the background. The large-scale painting (208x114 cm) was stored in the museum for decades in an intentioned state without a stretching frame. The painting was subjected to continuous moving, the canvas became very sensitive and over the years the adhesion of the ground and paint layers to the support have reduced, which led to peeling and gaps on the entire painted surface. In the past the canvas had been resized three times, it had been rolled up several times, which led to the weakening and fragmentation of the stretching sides and the edges of the painting, and as a result, numerous gaps and twenty-seven horizontal tears appeared in the canvas. The painted surface was coated with a heavily yellowed, uneven layer of varnish covered with a thick layer of dirt, sticky stains and insect contamination. The dust was removed from the surfaces, then the cleaning was followed by forming a temporary surface protection of the paint layer using Japanese tissue paper and fish glue. The straightening of the canvas with soaked, swollen and glued tracing paper strips continued this. As a result, the canvas was straightened and tensioned evenly in all directions with equal force. The gaps in the canvas were filled in with similar fabric patches, the tears were structurally reinforced with fibers using a bridging technique. New painting edges were applied to the canvas using BEVA 371 synthetic resin. After eliminating the temporary surface protection the yellowed varnish layer was removed, the gaps were filled in. The canvas was stretched on a new frame with crossbars and wedges. Retouching was made with aquarelle underpainting and a base varnish layer on it. Aesthetic reintegration was performed by thin layers of mimetic retouching with Maimeri Restauro retouch paint, then by Talens 114 acrylic spray the painting was given a protective varnish layer. Fruzsina Rauca-Bencze Painting conservator MA Szidónia Pál Conservation of a wrought iron hanging lamp from the Baroque revival era The wrought iron lamp made in the end of the 19th- beginning of the 20th century, became the property of the Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest after the Second World War. There are no available information about its history; the place and the date of manufacturing are unknown. In Iron and Metal Sample Sheets in 1884, a drawing of a hanging lamp designed by Albert Schikedanz is included. That lamp is similar to the piece owned by the Museum of Applied Arts, but due to the stylized depiction it cannot be said to be identical to the object is the paper about. The large (height: 155 cm, width: 62 cm, weight: 45 kg) lamp was made by using traditional blacksmithing techniques like chasing, punching, welding, riveting, and compiled with soldering and bolting. The decoration elements are various: curls, acanthus leaves, lambrequin imitations, punched pieces, petals and laurel tendrils. The screw holes indicated missing and unknown elements. The original curved lateral glass panes of the four sides and the lighting structure was absent. The lamp had been repaired several times when in use; it had replacement glass panes fixed by glass putty. The entire surface was covered with dirt and corrosion; many decorative elements were deformed, damaged or broken. After dismantling, all one hundred and twenty-nine pieces were cleaned using glass-bead blasting, the screws were treated with rust remover liquids. In order to preserve the lamp’s historicity, deformed parts were straightened out only in cases where this was necessary for stability or warranted aesthetically. Replacements of the Withworth threaded screws were made with a computer-controlled lathe in exactly the same dimensions as the originals. A strong iron-alloy rod was put in so that the lamp could again be hung. Based on the results of artificial corrosion tests, the iron parts were individually treated with tannic acid, they were then coated with ethyl-methacrylate-based resin and microcrystalline wax. Of the fragment of the earlier replacement transparent glass panes held in place by putty, the bottom ones were adhered and relaid, while the broken side ones were removed. Lack of data on the original side panes meant that no new panes were crafted, although a one-face mould suitably curved was made. Szidónia Pál Metal and goldsmith conservator MA Translated by: Szidónia Pál Translated by: Fruzsina Rauca-Bencze 237
