Let us mend your Broken Arts

This is a pre-columbian vase that took 8 weeks to restore.

Normally we'd go for a museum restoration on a piece like this, just to get it back together again and call it done, keeping it as original as possible. However, the customer opted for a complete restoration which would also help stabilize the piece, because it was in such bad shape.

The vase was approximately 10" x 8" and had been broken into 30+ large to medium sized pieces, and many small tiny pieces. Many of the cracks being chipped out, it made them appear wider. There were many small shards that would not fit back in, and some that were basically dust. We did manage to fit in as many small shards as we could.

We started on the back of the vase, where the worst damage was. Smaller pieces were glued together first to make bigger pieces, using a water based glue. We kept going until we ended up with all big pieces, then glued all of those together.

We used some of the left over dust, including other natural materials, as the fill work needed for the vase, only a very small trace of black paint was used in one small corner of the piece. The same material was used to cover some of the cracks.

Normally for a complete restoration, the object has to be painted, but that was not the case for this piece. Once completed the vase is stable and very solid, all natural materials used, all safe for this vase.