China Daily Global Edition (USA)
Breathing new life into art
Conservator uses ancient Chinese techniques to protect relics, Wang Linyan reports in London.
When Qiu Jinxian used a broad brush to splash drops of boiling water onto the front of an old Chinese painting, onlookers at the British Museum were amazed.
After the water turned cold, the Chinese conservator used a towel to absorb it from the painting that was resting on a table at the museum in London.
After repeating the process five times, decades of dirt and grime that had covered the historic painting had disappeared.
The day, in December 1987, when Qiu demonstrated the traditional Chinese technique to her future colleagues, was a turning point for the institution.
“At that time, conservators at the British Museum used the Japanese way: cleaning a painting from its back with cold water. They had never seen the Chinese way, with hot water. So, they were quite astonished, and kept taking photos of me working on the painting,” recalls Qiu, senior conservator at the museum.
Before carrying out the technique, she had first checked a tiny area of the painting to see whether the color would be affected as a result.
The demonstration made quite a splash at the museum, she remembers, and the head of the Department of Oriental Antiquities of the British Museum (now Asia Department), Professor Jessica Rawson, immediately welcomed the chance to use Chinese techniques to conserve Chinese paintings and asked Qiu to join the team.
Qiu, who had arrived from Shanghai Museum, then began a two-week trial at the British Museum, during which she worked on two paintings. One of them, Mount Jin’gang ( Diamond Cliffs, 1939-46), a landscape painting on paper by Fu Baoshi (1904–65), had been badly damaged by fire. Qiu found the same materials to those used in the painting and added a layer to its back, to fix holes caused by the fire. She then toned missing areas where necessary.
Painting and calligraphy restoration has a 1,000-year-plus history in China, and cleaning is its first and most important step. Other steps include removing old backing papers, repairing and toning missing areas.
A dedicated career
In April 1988, Qiu became a fulltime conservator at the British Museum and she has spent the intervening years conserving more than 200 paintings on silk, paper and gold sprinkled paper, in the form of scrolls or album leaves. The work even continued after Qiu officially retired in August 2011.
“The museum was concerned that no one could do such a complicated job after I left,” she says. “I had two students. They were very good as assistants, but they had not yet mastered difficult techniques. So, the museum wanted me to stay. And I wanted to conserve more Chinese paintings.”
So, since then, she has worked three days a week at the museum.
“I was working hard before retirement and it is just the same for me after retirement — finish the job on time,” she says. “Many important paintings have been repaired after my retirement.”
One of the most important paintings was the Admonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies, which is on display at the British Museum until Nov 15.
The scroll painting, dated between AD 400 and 700, is believed to be a copy of a work by the painter Gu Kaizhi, who lived around AD 345 to 406 during the Jin Dynasty (AD 265-420).
Conserving the scroll
Qiu first saw the Admonitions Scroll in 1991, in a storage room at the museum.
“It was very exciting to see one of the earliest Chinese paintings on silk, a priceless treasure,” she says. “The painting and inscription were on panels hung on the wall separately, fully covered by a wall case with a two-piece door.”
The scroll was not in a good condition when the museum acquired it in 1903, “much worn and rotted, and bears many traces of ancient repair”, according to an article written by a team led by Joanna Kosek, who oversees the Hirayama Studio built for the treatment of East Asian pictorial art.
During a treatment from 1914 to 1923, the painting section of the 8-meter-long scroll was separated from the later inscriptions. Both were mounted in flat form on two separate panels. A wrapper and a painting added to the scroll during the Qianlong period were kept separately in window mounts.
In 2013, the British Museum decided to repair the scroll after a twoyear investigation and invited experts from around the world to discuss the best way to go about it.
“The painting looked dry at that time, because of a consolidant applied during a conservation treatment in about 1923,” she says.
It’s believed that minimal intervention was the best way to protect the scroll: rehouse it, consolidate and re-adhere areas that are lifting. Qiu agreed consolidation was the best way forward.
But, she adds, the biggest challenge at that point was to find the right material to strengthen the scroll.
“The paste mixture has to be not too thick or too thin, just about the right stickiness,” she says. “And it must not leave a color on the painting.”
Qiu had previously repaired a silk painting with a mixture of modern adhesive and traditional starch paste, and she suggested the consolidant be used on the scroll. A small sample was tried and sent to the laboratory for further examination. The feedback was that the “material is great, no problem at all”.
It took Qiu, her two apprentices and a Japanese conservator more than two months to apply the mixture to the threads of silk cloth, with the help of a 25X Leica microscope. The effort was successful and the scroll went on display in a new gallery in June 2014, after its first public display in 1910–1912.
“The result was excellent,” she says. “The scroll looked smooth and solid, just as it looks now. It will have no problem at all to stay like this for another 200 or 300 years. And it’s wellkept in a bespoke display case with a stable temperature and humidity.
“This is one of China’s early silk paintings, it’s part of Chinese cultural legacy, so we must put special emphasis on it. If it were damaged, there would be no second such painting. I could not bear such a thought. My worries were relieved after rescuing the rare treasure.
“My teacher at Shanghai Museum told us that, as painting doctors, we must succeed at what we do. The operation on a painting must be successful.”
Principles of conservation
All the tools Qiu uses are sourced in China, and some have even been tailor-made for her.
The principles of conservation, as Qiu puts it, involve being bold with care and maintaining the original appearance of a work of art.
“It has to look just as it did before, but in a complete status,” she says. “So, I have to find exactly the same type and same color of silk fabric to make up for the damaged part of the work.”
In a cabinet in her conservation room, Qiu has a precious cloth bag she cherishes that contains a myriad of paper packages with Chinese notes. The packages contain mending materials and various types of fabric fragments, including tightly woven silk, loosely woven silk, and everything in between. They were given to Qiu by her teacher before she left for London.
“I have to identify the material of the painting first,” she says. “Then I have to find the same material before I start to repair the painting. Otherwise, I couldn’t do it.”
In addition, she has to make pigments that match those used in the original painting she is working on, and she must find the right decorative materials when she mounts a painting, to make it look as elegant as it did before.
The precious paintings she has repaired include three works of art she mounted in 2019 — one by Yun Shouping (1633-1690), a major artist from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911); one by Ni Duan (1426-1505), a court painter during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644); and a painting of flowers and birds, attributed to Emperor Huizong (1082-1135) of the Song Dynasty (960-1279).
Qiu had initially considered returning to Shanghai after working at the museum for two years.
“Then, Professor Rawson told me that I was crucially important to the museum and that, only after I joined the museum, would the Chinese paintings be properly repaired and displayed. I thought then that it is an issue. Many Chinese paintings in the storeroom are fragile and need conservation. It was my responsibility to rescue the Chinese paintings there.”
Passing on skills
Qiu has two students, one who has been learning alongside her for 19 years and another for 12. Qiu says she has taught them, step-by-step, the techniques they need, and called for their attention whenever there are important procedures being carried out.
“When I work, they follow me. When they work, I instruct them whenever needed. But it takes time for them to become independent, after all, the conservation techniques are quite difficult,” she says.
After having started out at Shanghai Museum, where she worked for 15 years starting in 1972, she still has a special bond with the institution, which is where she learned the skills she is now passing on. And her colleagues in Shanghai still help her by buying the materials she needs for her repair work in London. Because of this, Qiu has naturally become a bridge for friendship and cooperation between the two museums.
Qiu says the repair of ancient Chinese paintings is deeply meaningful.
“When I work on a painting, for example, I feel like I want to fix it as soon as possible, so it can be put on display. Visitors can see different painting styles from different periods of time in China’s history. And more and more researchers can study the painters, as well as the social, cultural and economic status from the paintings,” she says.
“It’s particularly important to conserve ancient paintings, so that they can pass on to the future, not just as important resources for study, but also as protected cultural relics.
“I’m pleased that I have managed to conserve important Chinese paintings at the museum. They are part of Chinese culture. I feel a sense of achievement.”
My teacher at Shanghai Museum told us that, as painting doctors, we must succeed at what we do. The operation on a painting must be successful.”
Qiu Jinxian, senior conservator at the British Museum