Author(s): Rosa, Inês ; Durana, Mariana ; Costa, Mariana ; Borges, Marta ; Perestrelo, Sofia ; Almeida, Isaura ; Vieira, Eduarda
Date: 2021
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/54785
Origin: Veritati - Repositório Institucional da Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Subject(s): Conservation; Dry/wet cleaning; Faculty of Fine Arts (FBAUP),; Plaster Panel
The collection the Faculty of Fine Arts of Porto includes in its collection a set of sculptures and low reliefs in plaster resulting of the academic activity of its former students, or of pieces acquired for educational purposes. The panel entitled “Os Pescadores” with 199cmx115cm x 19 cm by Maria Graciosa Mendes de Carvalho exhibits an iconography with a strong connection with the usual representations of the Portuguese People within the ideology of Estado Novo regime. The panel shows two male figures, the fishermen holding in their hands fishing nets and one female figure with a basket, possibly a fish seller and a child holding a fish in one hand and bread in the other. As a low relief, the piece transmits a symbolic force towards to contextualize the spectator within the harshness of the fishing gear, and, at the same time to communicate the values of hard work and virtue of the lower classes, very dear to the António Ferro National Propaganda Secretariat. Although, its chronology still unknown in this moment, the artist was a student in the Faculty between 1934 and 1949, becoming a painter. The formal language and the panel’s iconography are suitable with this period. Structurally, the panel does not exhibit major anomalies with its backside being stable, with emphasis on the large amount of dirt accumulated (in hollow areas) during the storage of the work. The surface shows small cracks and some volumetric gaps without great structural expression. The main anomaly results in the large amount of diverse dirt accumulated by layers and in areas with more sculpted volumes (heads, hairs and fishing nets), as well some spotting spots of paint drip and punctual biological colonization. In this communication, we aim to present the cleaning strategy of the panel and discuss the methodology based in different approaches of dry and wet methods, in order to give back a new aesthetic reading. As it is a topic still under development in the Portuguese context and given the scarcity of studies in this field, it is relevant to spread information and share experiences on specific case studies that pose specific challenges.
