Stories and Missions about Antique Restoration in Chongqing Three Gorges Museum

By Rui Hu, EDITOR

In every exhibition hall of Chongqing China Three Gorges Museum, all the antiques are the crystallization of the constant effort and wisdom of their restorers, who have brought new lives to these treasures.

Fei Tian: Mission of antique restoration

Fei Tian has already become a veteran in the Antique Protection Department of the Museum. Young as he is, Fei Tian has spent 14 years in this field. From nine to five day after day, he has been committed to this mysterious work. “We receive about 200 pieces of antiques for restoration every year, and the challenge is not the actions but the methods.”

Fei Tian summarized the principle for antique restoration as “the simplest matters most.” He then explained, “Besides repairing the old works and keeping their identifiability, the foundation is ‘taking history as the reference.’ That is to say, and the restoration methods should be well-documented and traceable. This philosophy is also the starting point of antique restoration and preservation, as well as the most fundamental professional quality and industrial consensus.”

In terms of how to keep the balance in antique restoration, Fei Tian also showed impressive know-how, “China has many extraordinary artisans in history, who combined their wisdom and inspirations in the design of a musical instrument or a building. So that it is a life-long consideration for the antique restorer to keep the balance between old and new — whether to reproduce the original oldness, to make a treasure brand-new and how to avoid antique restoration from being artistic re-creation at will.”

Yang Jun: Keep the antiques’ original styling to the greatest extent

Influenced by her father, then Director of the Museum’s Collection Department, Yang Jun has been wedded to antiques since childhood. After graduated from the university, she started her career as an antique restorer in this Museum. Her contribution for over three decades has given birth to her admirable craftsmanship.

The restorer should be both patient and careful. Hewing to the principle of “restoring the old as the old,” Yang Jun never dyes additionally if the drawings’ colors haven’t faded, and never removes the old mount and replace a new if scrolls haven’t been damaged severely, for preserving their original styling to the greatest extent.

During the interview, Yang Jun was busy in taking off a mount from one badly-damaged ancient scroll with her colleagues. Holding brushes in different sizes and soaked with the mount-removing agent, they were wiping the old drawing gently. After the whole parchment got soaked, a layer of wet cloth should be covered for separating the base paper and supporting paper from the painting. Yang Jun introduced that for some ancient scrolls, it was easy to remove the supporting document by slightly pulling, while you should grate and tear off some challenging one's skein by skein. Thus they have to pay several months or even half a year for restoring a scroll.

Mrs. Fan: Gorgeous colors on the plain base and unpainted clay

The word “China” carries two meanings: porcelain or our country. Early in the Neolithic Age, Chinese people had invented pottery, and as time went by, the substances made of argil and china clay and by baking are all collectively called porcelain.

Mrs. Fan is responsible for restoring the potteries and porcelains in the Museum, including blue and white porcelains, ceramic whitewares, pottery figurines, and others familiar to us all. Different from metal pieces like bronze wares, these articles wouldn’t suffer oxidation after years. Compared with scrolls, they attract fewer insect pests and seem easier to restore.

However, even a small bowl needs complicated processes before regaining its original and seemingly-intact appearance, reflecting the required skills and painstaking efforts behind. Mrs. Fan expressed modestly that she still needed to study more for her current qualifications haven’t been perfect; especially for re-coloring, which was always challenging for the antique restorer to master the brightness, darkness, and reproduction.

Source: CQCB

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