Project Summary:

La Grande Dame depicts a woman painted with colored glazes on a large ceramic bowl-shaped sculpture, which is meant to be displayed hanging from the wall. Ghada Amer created this artwork using paper clay - a clay that contains cellulose fibers as well as varying amounts of grog (crushed and powdered fired clays). The cellulose fibers impart significant strength during shaping and allows for thinner walls and taller structures prior to bisque-firing, while the grog limits shrinkage during drying as well as controlling thermal expansion and contraction during firing. The manufacturer describes this proprietary clay mixture as “a medium coarse clay body which exhibits excellent throwing characteristics. This material pulls up well for tall vertical forms without downward creep. Also throws well horizontally holding near flat cantilever flanges on bowls without slumping. The clay both stretches well on big bellied pots and necks as well as on pinch neck bottles… an excellent sculptural body with remarkable resistance to cracks and warps. It is highly grogged with a toasty color.”

During transit, this bowl shaped sculpture sustained a break across the center due to inadequate packing. As part of treatment, we closely examined the break edge for small cracks and weakness - check out detail photos below. In these images, you can see some of the grog as well as a visible color difference in the clay body from outside to inside, where the clay reached different temperatures during firing. Adjacent to the break on either edge of the bowl were also a number of shrinkage cracks in the glaze, which had been previously filled and decorated with gold leaf as part of Amer’s original composition. After the shipping damage occurred, Amer requested that her work be repaired using a kintsugi style of ceramic repair. The Japanese word, which translates to golden (“kin”) and repair (“tsugi”), refers to a philosophy where the break is illuminated in gold and treated as part of the object’s history instead of concealed in an invisible repair.

Kintsugi is traditionally carried out using urushi lacquer and powdered gold, and as a restoration method does not necessarily align with the contemporary conservation ethic of reversibility. Our modified kintsugi-style treatment included consolidating and stabilizing the break edges with a reversible conservation adhesive before aligning and adhering the two halves with a conservation epoxy. After consultation with Amer, we filled and gilded the join and a few smaller losses along the break line using 24k gold leaf. Finally, an aluminum Z-clip hanging cleat was custom cut and adhered on the verso using bulked epoxy, which allowed the artwork to be safely hung on the wall while also providing additional support across the breakline. As a result of treatment, the ceramic is visually restored and can now safely be shipped, handled, and installed.