This is the final installment of the conservation treatment of Nefrina’s Funerary mask.  The condition and stabilization of the interior have been discussed in previous posts.  In this post, I will be talking about building the storage and display mount as well as stabilizing the exterior of the mask.

1.  New mount construction:  Once the interior structural issues were addressed, I made a new mount for the object. I carved Ethafoam, an inert polyethylene foam, to create a support for the top of the head, and used epoxy putty (the black material in the images below) to create a form-fitting rigid support. The clear plastic in the image below is cling film, which I used to keep the epoxy from bonding to the mask while it cured.

The mount is in three separate detachable parts. Part 1 supports the top of the head and the face, part 2 supports the front and back panels of the mask, and part 3 is a stand to hold parts 1 and 2 during travel and storage. Parts 1 and 2 of the mount are supporting the mask at this moment while it is on display (along with a pole mount that has taken the place of part 3).

Left: During treatment photo showing the construction of the top portion of the mount. Right: The completed mount.

2.  Facing removal: Once I completed the mount and put it in place, I flipped the mask over again and started to remove the temporary facing of Japanese tissue. I removed the facing in sections and stabilized the exposed areas before moving on to a new area. I did this by brushing an area of facing with acetone, which solubilized the adhesive that had been used to place the facing, and then gently pulling the Japanese tissue back.

Carefully removing the Japanese tissue facing

3.  Re-shaping before tear repair: Some of the tears did not go through all of the linen layers, and so could not be treated from the interior. These tears had to be realigned and repaired from the front. As with the inside, I often had to humidify and re-shape an area before carrying out the repair. The images below show the tear in the forehead of the mask during reshaping. I used Teflon tape to bring the edges of the tear together.

During reshaping of the tear in the forehead

4.  Tear repair: I repaired the tears using paper pulp combined with methyl cellulose and powdered pigments. Before applying the wet pulp, I lined part of the areas with a thin sheet of dried paper pulp mixture to achieve an even fill.

Left: Lining the area with dried paper pulp and methyl cellulose. Right: After filling with additional paper pulp/methyl cellulose mixture.

5.  Edging: Many areas of the paint were adjacent to areas of loss and were cracked and cupped. I stabilized these areas by edging the paint with paper pulp combined with methyl cellulose and powdered pigments.

Details of the side of the mask after edging the areas of unstable paint

6.  Loss Compensation: Large areas of loss on the edges of the mask also had to be filled for the mask to be structurally stable. I filled the areas of loss by applying pigmented paper pulp mixed with methyl cellulose across the areas of loss using a backing support of silicone-coated Mylar. The coating on the Mylar allows it to be removed once the paper pulp mixture had dried.

Left: Detail during loss compensation. The square rare earth magnet at the bottom of the image was used to align the Mylar along the contours of the mask. Right: After the fill was complete and had dried.

7.  In-painting: Although I had pre-toned the fill material, the fills still needed just a bit of in-painting to adjust the color so that it would blend in better with the mask.

Left: Tear on the head after treatment. Right: Area of loss on the side of the mask after treatment.

All of this work allowed Nefrina’s Funerary mask to travel for exhibition in the Reading Public Museum, and to be exhibited here at the museum, In the Artifact Lab – visit us to take a closer look at the mask for yourself, and to see several other objects that have recently been conserved.

– posted by Tessa de Alarcon