Tátrai Vilmos szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 95. (Budapest, 2001)

VOZIL, IRÉN: Technical analysis, restoration and evaluation of material testing of the bronze statuette of Imhotep

A complete chasing was necessary to remove the casting defects. These operations were made only in a superficial way on the piece of our collection. This is verified by well visible traces of filing both on the chair and on the base (fig. 16). The rectangular opening on the base which receives the tenon for fixing the seated figure had also been originally formed during casting, but in my opinion it was not made for this seated figure. I base this opinion on the following observation of the opening: a lengthwise and a crosswise deep scratch or chiselled marking can be seen at the top and bottom sides of the opening to show the edge of the opening (figs. 15-16). Along these lines the opening was widened by means of chiselling. This is also verified by the fact that the sides of the tenon hole are vertical and do not follow the inclination of the tenon. For this reason the size of the hole had to be made much larger than the diameter of the tenon because of this deviation in angles.This also proves that the chair originally belonged to an other statuette, which probably was produced with the same casting technology as the chair. We have no information on the time when the body produced by lost wax technology and the chair prepared with an open sand mould method might have been joined. What we know for sure is that in the mid 19

th century, when the statue was first documented, the sitting figure of Imhotep was already paired with this chair ( fig. 17).

13 II. RESTORATION An active corrosion covered the entire statue prior to restoration (fig. 6).The surface was stained red, with intermittent green spots. This corrosion layer was not a verd-antique. Prior to starting any treatment for removing the corrosion layer I had to assess the extent of corrosion. Most of the inscriptions were not legible because of the corrosion and the adhering pollution layer. The fine details of processing could not be seen either, except for hazy traces, which could not be interpreted properly. Prior to starting the cleaning process I applied a protective lacquer layer in order to avoid any damage to the inlaid parts such as the gold inlay of the collar and the inlay of the eye thought to be made of a gold-silver (electron) alloy from its yellowish-white colour. I used a minimum quantity of chemicals to make sure that the materials of the statue would not suffer permanent damage while the contamination was being removed. I cleaned the surface by blowing a refined powder of hazelnut shell piecemeal (using a small velocity of blowing and an optimum nozzle size), then I used a glass brush to remove the residual contamination from the most sensitive parts along the inlays. As a result of the restoration the text on the papyrus roll held in Imhotep's hand could be exposed in detail and it became legible (figs. 18-19)

14 as well as the inscription on the 13 The picture of the Imhotep statue was shown among the water-colour drawings by the Viennese painters Bucher, J. and Böhm, W. in the album entitled Liber Antiquitatis (Eperjes 1842, p. 11). which introduced the Fejérváry-Pulszky collection. 14 The inscription of the papyrus roll held in Imhotep's hand is not mentioned in the album entitled Liber Antiquitatis, because at that time it was almost entirely covered by the extensive corrosion and contamination. The inscription of the footstool could be only seen in fragments. 2S