62g-SL-2022_Turin, Museum of Oriental Art, Luohan sitting in dhyanamudra, inv. 454

Facilitated description: 

 

Luohan is a painted wooden sculpture from China.
The Luohan for the Buddhist relic is a saint. The Luohan is represented sitting with his legs and hands crossed in the gesture of meditation.
The Luohan was built during the 1500s and is kept at the Museum of Oriental Art in Turin (MAO). 
The La Venaria Reale Conservation and Restoration Centre restored the Luohan in 2022 for an exhibition. 
The scientists of the Venaria Center have done scientific analysis to study the materials of which the sculpture is made. 
The restorers carried out a cleaning (cleaning the surface of the sculpture from the dirt deposited over time and from the layers of old restorations). 
They eliminated the non-original painted parts and not executed according to the ancient technique.
They designed the intervention on colors in collaboration with the superintendence. 
Eventually they painted the Luohan to protect it from the sun's rays and dust. 

 

 

 

 

Abstract of the intervention: 

 

The work was restored on the occasion of the exhibition Buddha10. Fragments, drifts and refractions of the Buddhist visual imagination (Museo d'Arte Orientale di Torino, 20 October 2022 – 3 September 2023). The sculpture was subjected to an in-depth diagnostic campaign in order to deepen the executive technique and the state of conservation of the sculptures. 

 

Restoration

The sculpture had a lack of wood and a strong erosion due to entomatic attack. In addition, there were widespread adhesion defects and repaintings of recent times. 
The intervention consisted of a general safety in view of the exposure. In particular, the following operations were envisaged: surface cleaning from inconsistent deposits, removal of overlaid pictorial materials aimed at recovering only the material considered original. In this phase, particular attention was paid to maintaining any ancient remakes to reproduce original materials and executive practices. The aesthetic restitution phase has been designed in collaboration with the Protection Authority, evaluating the possibility of intervening with plastering and pictorial integrations. Finally, a protective layer was added with a UV filter.