Restoration - is it acceptable?: review of the conference held at the British Museum 24-25 November, 1994

Conference at the British Museum, 24-25 November, 1994

Resource squeezing, professional middle age (the International Institute for Conservation was founded in 1950), a growing public profile, and concern about the effect on conservation of visitor-attracting activities, such as exhibitions and loans, have all contributed to the current trend of self-examination on the part of conservators. This conference marks another stage in the development of openness in our profession: conservators are asking questions about what they do in the presence of their peers, although it must be said that the general tone of the presentations was 'what we do is acceptable'.

This conference attracted such a wide range of conservation professionals (institutional, private, managers, consultants), from different kinds of collections (technology, folk, art and design, churches, universities), dealing with such a variety of objects (among which were Indian miniatures, archaeological textiles, computers, antiquities, and motorcars) that it may be as representative a gathering of British conservators as we would ever be likely to have. Contributions made by colleagues from the United States, Austria, France and Italy, and the presence of delegates from Belgium, Norway, South Africa, Germany, Ireland, Finland, Switzerland, and Sweden offered an international context for comparisons and exchange.

The title of the conference required that attempts be made to define restoration and to ask the questions: acceptable to whom, and for what? No one tackled the first question head on. Restoration, it was inferred, was whatever conservation or preservation was not. To some it followed on logically from conservation: first came cleaning, then stabilisation and finally restoration, e.g. filling and in-painting.¹In other words, restoration deals with aesthetic or cosmetic issues. It was what was done in the past or it was what returned the object to a past state. There was general agreement that returning an object to a 'pure' state, as the artist intended, is not possible. Rather, a certain point in its history must be selected - a process with the inherent pitfall of deciding on one point at the expense of other points in time. Cases included a late eighteenth-century dress, converted into a party costume in the nineteenth century and restored to its 1780s appearance,²and the Lansdowne Herakles, relieved of its 1970s accretions and restored to its eighteenth-century appearance.³ The choice of which point in time to which the object was returned seemed to depend mainly on its context within its present situation, which included its rarity and/or state of restoration. For example, the reason the nineteenth-century fancy dress was purchased was because of its rarity as a surviving example of 1780s costume, no matter how radically transformed. The significance of the Herakles in the 1990s - as opposed to the 1970s - lay in its importance as an example of an eighteenth-century collector's piece. In both cases, highly interventive treatments were considered acceptable in order to regain earlier manifestations.

The selection of a cut-off date (all restorations earlier than that date are accepted and those dated afterwards are removed), such as the date of bequest of The Wallace Collection (1898)⁴ , is another way of deciding on the acceptability of restoration.

There was also general acknowledgement that all restorations are products of their time and as such are 'acts of critical interpretation'⁵ and subject to the whims of fashion and taste. It seems to be the case that whether or not a restoration is deemed acceptable will depend to a certain extent on whether the taste of the period in which it was executed is fashionable now - in this regard the nineteenth century is still suffering ignominy.

However, there was no recommendation made at the conference that restoration should stop. On the contrary, it was acknowledged that conservators do it, that conservation and restoration are not mutually exclusive⁶, but part of a process, and that there is a role for both conservation and restoration in the preservation of historic objects⁷, but that there is a need to perform restorations within agreed guidelines. Two speakers presented lists of points to be considered.⁸While the denigration of some past and contemporary restorations came as no surprise, the benefits of restoration were expounded by many. It was also agreed that there were often many options for restoration and the choice of option was based, in the end, on the conservator's judgement and its success on the conservator's skill.⁹Reserving objects in an unrestored state for study, especially those with few or no earlier restorations, was also considered to be an option.¹⁰

With regard to the acceptability of restoration, determining factors were: the 'function' of the object (which is not inherent but designated) and its relation to the 'motivations' driving restoration activities. Many echoed the utilitarian view of objects as material conveyors of information and enjoyment.¹¹However, the complexities of this idea were brought out spectacularly in Suzanne Keene's talk on the conservation of early computers (usually the size of a room)¹²and were reiterated elsewhere.^{13, 14} Computers, like all objects, are worn out by use. If levels of intervention are defined by the use to which the object is put then what comes into question are the requirements of the collection or owner. If, as Peter Mann put it, you want to preserve your motor car in the scruffy condition in which it entered the collection in anticipation of the day, which may or may not come, when the expert arrives to study it, fine; if, on the other hand, you want to demonstrate to the interested public what such a motor car looked like when it came off the assembly line, then you have to restore it. In other words, who the information is intended for is crucial. We restore with intention and it is the intention which needs to be questioned.

The role of public taste, therefore, came into the discussions of acceptability. It was reported that at the Science Museum people were disturbed to see expensive old motorcars looking shabby, whereas when the Museum of London opened its stores to the public, the old-looking horse-drawn carriages were preferred to the newly restored ones. In Brittany, when conservators at the regional conservation centre returned a sculpture after restoration to its location in the church, there were complaints from the parish that it still looked damaged and pleas for the broken part to be replaced.¹⁵

It was apparent that the precepts so familiar to us from conservation codes of ethics and practice, 'detectibility, reversibility/ retreatability', were still held sacrosanct by speakers and audience alike. However, the ease with which restoration could be achieved within strict rules seemed, in part, to depend on the type of object being restored. One of the benefits of a conference as wide-ranging as this one was the opportunity provided to compare the difference in approach taken by different specialists and to look at one's own work without the usual blinkers of familiarity. There were instances cited, however, when rules were overridden by the motivation. The motivation to produce an accurate example of a 1930s lorry from a rusty heap required that the historical information and aesthetic be recreated through restoration, which included the addition of missing parts (from the period) and a new coat of paint. This was acceptable as long as:

• careful consideration was given to what was to be done and to the consequences of doing it;
• the conservator/institution was prepared to accept those consequences;
• what was done was recorded.¹⁶

While there was plenty of time allocated for discussion, my only regret was the lack of summing up and many expressed the view that the conference was inconclusive. So, where do we go from here? What follows are some of the heartfelt pleas of contributors and delegates:

• for accreditation so that clients know, at the very least, who has formal conservation training;
• for object-specific standards, such as those devised by the Museums and Galleries Commission for Musical Instruments and for computers by the Computer Conservation Society, to be extended to other object types;
• for continued communication with clients, curators, owners and the public, as well as with fellow conservators;
• for increased participation by conservators in collections management;
• for the use of imaging techniques and for the production of replicas where appropriate;
• for the involvement of conservators in decision-making at all stages of the life of an object in determining its designated role and motivations for its restoration.

References

^1.Andrew Oddy, Keeper of Conservation, The British Museum.
^2.Dinah Eastop reporting on the work she and her colleagues, Mary Brooks, Caroline Clark and Carla Petschek, undertook at the Textile Conservation Centre, East Molesey.
^3.Jerry Podany, Head of Antiquities Conservation, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, California.
^4.David Edge, Senior Metalwork Conservation Officer and Armourer, The Wallace Collection, London.
^5.David Bomford, Senior Restorer, National Gallery, London, quoting Cesare Brandi.
⁶.Jonathan Ashley-Smith, Head of Conservation, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
^7.Dinah Eastop.
^8.Dinah Eastop, Jonathan Ashley-Smith.
^9.David Bomford.
^10.Colin Jenner, Conservation Officer (Gilding), The Wallace Collection, London.
^11.Jonathan Ashley-Smith.
^12.Suzanne Keane, Head of Collections Management, Science Museum, London.
13.Francis Brodie, Conservation Officer (Applied Arts), Museum of London.
14.Timothy Hayes, formerly Conservation Officer (Applied Arts), Museum of London, and now Conservator, Organics Group, Conservation Department, Victoria and Albert Museum.
15.TiamatMolina, Restorer, Atelier Regional de Restauration, Bignan, France.
16.Peter Mann, formerly Senior Curator, Land Transport, Science Museum, London.

Note

Published papers are available from The British Museum Company, 46 Bloomsbury Street, London WC1B 3QQ, ISBN 0861590996, £19.50. This review is restricted to talks given at the conference and to the discussions which followed.