Antiques, their restoration and preservation / by A. Lucas.

  • Alfred Lucas
Date:
[1932]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Antiques, their restoration and preservation / by A. Lucas. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/248 page 14
    objects, gained as tbe result of experience, will be found helpful. The nature of the changes and decay that have taken place is often less easy to diagnose. With care, however, and by means of a few simple physical and chemical tests, gross errors on both points may be avoided, and methods of testing therefore will be given. But, as already stated, something more than this is required if serious mistakes in treatment are to be avoided; thus, for instance, it might be ascertained that a particular vase was made of alabaster (calcite) and that a crystalline efflorescence on the surface was common salt, but before this information could usefully be applied to the cleaning of the vase, it must also be known that alabaster is acted upon by acid, but not by water, and that salt is soluble in water, but not in acid. This knowledge would result in the choice of water and the avoidance of acid for cleaning purposes. Although the principles on which the cleaning and preservation of antiquities are based demand a con¬ siderable amount of scientific and chemical know¬ ledge, the application of these principles is largely a matter of skilled manipulation founded upon long training and improved by constant practice. At one time all work of the nature of that under consideration was undertaken without scientific advice, but now the tendency is often in the other direction, and the
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