THE MAZARIN CHEST PROJECT
Conservation of the Mazarin Chest
Treatment of the Mazarin Chest took place within the Conservation Department at the V&A. Whilst restoration seeks to return things to a previous, more perfect state, conservation seeks to minimise deterioration and pass the object on to the future with as little permanent change as possible. The first step in the conservation of the Mazarin Chest was to understand as much as possible about how it was made.
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The Construction of the Mazarin Chest
How was the Mazarin Chest constructed? A description of how the different sections fit together plus an x-ray showing how the joints were reinforced with nails, not wooden pegs as was first thought.
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Japanese Lacquer
Lacquer (urushi) has been used to produce both utilitarian objects and works of art in Japan for millennia. Japanese lacquer is made from the sap of the Rhus vernicifera (Toxicodendron vernix) tree, a species of the family Anacardiaceae.
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Decoration Techniques
The Mazarin Chest is one of the finest pieces of Japanese export lacquer to have survived from the first half of the seventeenth century. The high quality of this piece is clearly evident in its lavish decoration, which is executed to an astonishing level of detail using a wide range of lacquer techniques.
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Treatment
Preliminary work began in 2004 to examine the Mazarin Chest, to assess its condition, and to document where and why it was damaged. The key conservation issues identified at the outset were splits in the wood substrate and associated damage, lifting metal foil decoration, lifting mother-of-pearl decoration, degradation of the lacquer surface due to exposure to light and replacement of degraded old fills and removal of associated poor quality retouching.