Konserwacja mozaiki bizantyjskiej Madonny z klasztoru Klarysek w Krakowie

In the Clarissan Nuns Monastery neighbouring St. Andrew Church, Cracow a Byzantine mosaic made in the XII—XIH-century Constantinople is being preserved depicting the Holy Virgin in a half-figure with an image of Christ placed within the upper right corner. In view of its high artistic rank the above mosaic is to be considered as a very valuable monument of ancient art the more so that its overall dimensions of 22,3X17,3 cm are extremely small and the size of the individual tesserae does not usually exceed an average of 1 mm3 whereas those of whom the pattern of Christ’s and Virgin’s faces and hands was set up are even smaller. Both detailed examination and careful restoration of this mosaic have been carried out early in 1967. After taking the picture out from its frame and removing the gilded ornamented plaquette which was placed in the left upper corner it has been revealed that this latter was covering a fairly big area of the lost and damaged mosaic that was filled up with a thick and unevenly laid wax layer attracting the dust particles. The entire surface of mosaic was covered with dirt and thus darkened and the further observations have shown that the Virgin’s right cheek and eye were also distorted as the tesserae have been wrongly laid The chief problem in restoration consisted in the and, as a consequence, disturbed in their arrangement, proper placing of the extremely small-sized tesserae. It proved necessary to use a method that would prevent the total dissipation of tesserae forming the proper pattern. The separate areas of mosaic pattern had to be covered with the cut to exact size bits of tracing paper that was fixed to the surface by means of wax. The thus secured fragments were then taken out and laid back onto the wax-resin support which the operation was carried out under magnifying glass. A considerable loss within an area forming the background and partly that of nimbus was replaced with the wax-resin paste whose surface was given a tex ture resembling that of the original mosaic. The examinations carried out have revealed that the mosaic was laid on the lime wood panel coated with the very dark, nearly black coloured wax support. The tesserae were prepared of the differently coloured marble fragments, of the glass paste as well as of the copper gold-plated plates and those made of gold and silver. The structure of the whole picture exhibits some kind of both technical and technological heterogeneity (cf. the Virgin’s garment) thus giving a rise to assumption that the separate portions of mosaic could be executed in different periods and subjected to restorations after damages suffered.