Repairing Mistakes
Guiding Questions:
Is what we see what was on the object originally? Or is what we see just a mistake from the repair process? This is very important to understand especially when trying to analyze Middle Ages objects for their historical context. Are we making errors in our interpretation because of errors in the object?
About the Dish:
Although many fragments are repaired with the intention of restoring the original form, we must be weary of the final product. An example is overpainting objects. This is a method that is usually used to enhance objects, especially those already decorated using an overglaze technique. For example, reproducing luster by painting on top of the glaze itself is never found on real luster pottery although it may look like a decoration that is common. Brown pigments are often used to reinforce faded designs on original objects, yet in photographs they appear as thick dark pigments.
The medieval object in this room is a piece of a bowl from Cairo that seems to be heavily restored since the conservations overpainted a symbol that was deemed to originally be the tail of a bird. The conservationist had not only overpainted but also improvised on the bowl without understanding what the symbol actually was. This dish shows the restoration with foreign sherds and overpainting that unfortunately transformed a bird into a sceptre (Watson 2008). This amount of detail, especially with overpainting, is very difficult to distinguish and is often mistaken to be part of the original object.
This is an example of the creation of new art that is unintentional and can prove to be very dangerous and harmful when trying to analyze the historical context behind the bowl itself. Therefore, any bowls that have been repaired from many fragments should be very closely analyzed to make sure that audience is not getting a flawed image.