On 19 and 20 September 2019, the Ferrara Fiera exhibition district was the venue for a seminar on scientific restoration at which talks were given by members of staff from the State Hermitage’s Department of Scientific Restoration and Conservation.
Natalia Polevaya told about the restoration laboratories, the long-standing traditions of Hermitage restoration and also the latest trends and working principles that guide restorers today. Yelena Krylova, Yekaterina Dutova and Vadim Lebedev gave talks about the restoration of stained glass from the Hermitage collection carried out in recent years. Olga Dzheniya and Irina Gefding spoke about the Laboratory for the Scientific Restoration of Tempera Painting, the restoration of the wooden supports of paintings, and also about the results of the restoration of Hendrick Bolidanus’s Crucifixion and a double-sided icon of The Adoration of the Magi by an unknown 15th-century Czech artist. Alexander Androkhanov’s presentation was devoted to the restoration of items made of lapis lazuli and malachite in the Hermitage.
All day, a master class in the Russian mosaic technique was held on the Hermitage stand during which Alexander Androkhanov demonstrated reconstructed historical processes for the creation and restoration of a patterned mosaic surface from malachite and lapis lazuli.
