In the world of Ancient Art.

I work with art and we have a saying that would easily apply to Ancient coins as well.

" When you buy a master work of art you are not really its owner, you are it's caretaker for the next generation."

This article just came out about a recent questionable restoration.

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/amateur-artist-restores-15th-century-religious-shrine-1345679

 

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It now looks like a tacky Made in China souvenir statue one would pick up on vacation for $30 from some street vendor.

 

It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic.
On a completely unrelated note, I really like the renovated mona lisa...it just needed some more paint!

 

BenSi, that's a shameful desecration of art. The people that did this should be punished.

 

Everything looks better with a little paint added to it! Right kids?!

 

She tried her best.

Erin

 

i have the t shirt for this one.

 

Reminds me of this article I saw some years ago:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/05/turkey-roman-mosaics-damaged-botched-restoration

Roman mosaics ruined after restoration.

 

What a shame. For a similar reason I've stopped cleaning up ancient coins. Usually the results are not-so-hot.

 

Why would you clean coins? I love patina's on coins, that is what makes them look full of history, an oxidized layer formed over 2000 years, I don't understand why some people would strip them (except if it is a bad case of bronze disease, which is unfortunate and not intentional).

 

To Ryro. Is the renovated Mona Lisa perchance sister of that guy in Mad Magazine ? But her delicate hands don't match very well to her not so delicate face !

 

I think there’s a difference between traditional cleaning of coins and stripping the patina. Plenty of people who clean ancient coins recognize that they should leave the patina alone.

 

Mainly crusty late roman bronze coins. I was in the habit of buying hoards of about 250 coins and then cleaning them up. The success rate was around 30% but it's a lot of work. These days I am just buying quality coins. I realized that the LRB's don't have much value in the marketplace but can still be historically interesting.

 

Concerning the OP post, let me be clear, I think what happened to that late medieval sculpture was deeply regrettable. I’m a medieval studies professor and thus have a particular sensitivity to such artifacts.

But I do think this phenomenon raises an interesting philosophical question. What is the function of this piece of art? What happens when a community has a devotional connection to the art, seeing it not as a museum piece but as a contemporary functioning aspect of their devotional practice? It seems that these amateurish “restorations“ occur when the art is in situ, not hanging in the Uffizi. I wonder what would please that carver more—the idea that the piece would be taken to a museum and be protected behind a glass case, or that it would be remain in the church, vulnerable to these kinds of “restorations,” but still part of the devotional life of parishioners?

Please don’t take this comment as an indication that I’m OK with this pretty awful paint job. And I understand that the bare wooden sculpture can inspire piety just as well as the painted version. But I think it’s productive to consider that what we might term vandalism, the woman who painted the piece might regard as an act of piety.

 

Stripping the patina ? Leave the patina alone !

 

This reminds me that the temples in Egypt were painted inside and out, which would look strikingly garish to our modern eyes. It's only due to the passage of time that the paint has worn off...

 

Interesting topic. I like Gavin's take on the purpose of art, ecclesiastical devotion vs. museum (a different type of devotion, perhaps, but not the same). This ties into recent threads on museums vs. collectors as repositories of art (specifically coins). Is a coin as artifact better served in the hands of a single collector or in a drawer in the basement of a museum?

As for restoration of antiquities, there is something I often just don't like when I encounter it - even beyond the absurd example in the OP. I recently made my first trip to Rome and found I much preferred the Arch of Septimius Severus with all its discoloration and damage to the Arch of Titus, which looked over-restored and somewhat sterile to me.

 

Interesting topic. I like Gavin's take on the purpose of art, ecclesiastical devotion vs. museum (a different type of devotion, perhaps, but not the same). This ties into recent threads on museums vs. collectors as repositories of art (specifically coins). Is a coin as artifact better served in the hands of a single collector or in a drawer in the basement of a museum?

As for restoration of antiquities, there is something I often just don't like when I encounter it - even beyond the absurd example in the OP. I recently made my first trip to Rome and found I much preferred the Arch of Septimius Severus with all its discoloration and damage to the Arch of Titus, which looked over-restored and somewhat sterile to me.

 

In coins, we have a much more fundamental attitude than most of the arts. Paintings are regularly cleaned of the years of smoke and grease that have changed the since the artist last touched them. In this process a bit of paint that chipped here and there is touched up. If a vandal slashes a painting, it is sewed up and healed with the skills of a plastic surgeon uses on a rich old lady. In sculpture, we break apart statues that were 'fixed' 200 years ago and reassemble them, hopefully, this time using methods and materials that won't create the problems of the earlier restoration. Here in Richmond VA, we have a full length statue of Caligula that was recently taken apart and reassembled using clues from the grain in the marble rather than the opinions of the last owner. In coins, we use nasty words to describe people who tool or smooth entire coins and really get belligerent when we catch someone adding putty before they repaint a coin not nearly as badly damaged as was the car we just gave the same treatment. Imagine if coins were like old cars and dinosaurs where you can build one out of parts that did not start out together or even come from the same species.

Standards vary. All ancients coins have been cleaned. The ones with an inch of dirt on them used to have two inches if not a few feet of soil. We have recently seen threads here where collectors of old Chinese coins explained their preference for coins that still have some surface adhesions but that they like to be able to read the coins. Many of us like silver coins with 50-100 years of 'natural' tone but the market for 'find' patina (dark grey or black) silver is limited. In the future will the Venus de Milo gain arms and people pay more for naturally circulated dekadrachms than they do for those in bright shining mint state? I agree we are just the custodians for future custodians of our coins. I wish I had more faith in what they will want to satisfy the fad of their day.

 

Something to keep in mind though, is that we know the statuary of the ancient Greco-Roman world was colorfully painted. In a few instances, we can actually see the faint imbedded remnants of the original pigments. That is also true of much of the external decoration of their temples. It would not be a bad idea to restore at least some of this work to its appearance as the Ancients would have seen it. Our monochromatic, bleached view of ancient statues and temples is inaccurate.