Fills for the Repair of Marble

This paper is concerned with the approaches, materials and techniques used by conservators in the filling of voids in damaged marble surfaces. It will focus on methods for making small-scale surface patches and fills to cracks and fissures rather than covering descriptions of fills that increase the structural integrity of an object.

Comments will be made throughout on the environmental, economic, ethical and aesthetic demands that inform the various approaches. For example, the requirements for a fill viewed at eye level will be different from those for one made on a more remote aspect; equally one made in an exposed harsh aspect may have different requirements from one made in a controlled environment.

Figure 1 Trajan Column, Rome, Italy. Image showing a patchwork of repairs including grey cement-based fills to cracks and fissures on the uncarved area of the column base.

Jonathan Kemp

Jonathan Kemp has over fifteen years experience as a senior sculpture conservator and consultant working on a range of movable and immovable artefacts dating from between circa 2000 BC to the twentieth century.

He has worked extensively in stone, plaster, fresco, ceramic and artificial stone in both public and private UK holdings and on international projects in Spain, the Ukraine, and, most recently, Iran. Currently he is a senior sculpture conservator at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

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Donhead Publishing 2012