AFNetsuke
Registered: Dec 09, 2008
Posts: 632
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| | March 03, 2010 at 10:43 PM | Reply with quote | #16 |
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Does anyone ever examine netsuke under blacklight as is sometimes done with pottery and stone artifacts in order to detect restorations? Do any of you own a steromicroscope and do exams in the 40 to 60X magnification range? If so, can you describe your experiences? |
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Clive
Registered: Nov 29, 2004
Posts: 184
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| | March 04, 2010 at 05:09 AM | Reply with quote | #17 |
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Yes Alan, I routinely use both. I plan to discuss their use extensively in my series. Thank you for all for your encouragement BTW, I feel slightly more confident after reading your comments and will start writing the articles for possible INSJ publication.
The increased use of ultraviolet light to detect restoration work and freshly cut ivory by some dealers and collectors actually led to my involvement in this area. During the 60's, 70's and 80's there were a great number of ivory "restorers" using various cements, resins and compounds developed in the dental industry to repair ivories. The great advantage such materials offered these fellows was that they seemed to overcome perhaps the most difficult challenge that this sort of task presented. How to create a 3 dimensional object that fits precisely into another 3 dimensional object.. like one would common find when say part of an ivory carving had been broken off and lost. Synthetic material that could be moulded rather than carved (as would be necessary with another piece of ivory) overcame this problem and made the job of creating a (initially) good looking repair relatively easy. During the period described above literally thousands of such repairs where undertaken.
Early in the 1990's however as some disserning collectors increasingly started to use ultraviolet which dramatically exposes the use of such synthetic materials, and led to their use being increasingly questioned and most of these cowboy "restorers" eventually disappeared. (..although there are still a good few around and dealers who have such work undertaken). Carvers like myself who have the nessessary skills to conduct a genuine type of restoration then began to be contacted by dealers and collectors with their previously "restored" carvings and assistance requested... but more about all that later.
I use a low power stereoscopic dissecting microscope in both in the creation of my own works and when studying and working on older pieces and would recommend any serious collector of netsuke use one too.. not least as a basic requirement in the proper appreciation of tool marks.. those created by hand and those created by rotary tool.
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