Been a while....

Greetings all. Yes, I know it's been a while but the restoration world around me has gone bonkers. I'm extremely happy (yet stressed) that everyone on the planet has had their clumsy pills. Anyways, have some photos of the recent works I have been doing, they range from Antiquities through to the 1960's.

Enjoy (there will be brief descriptions attached to each photo)

Greek Kylix (smashed handle)

Satsuma export ware from about 1920

African ebony sculpure that fell down some stairs and ended up in 15 pieces

Shiwan scholar getting a new earlobe and some new fingers

A hideous Deco chalkware lamp

Another Shiwan scholar, the base was smashed into, well, dust.

A Ushabti 200BC. Cleaned and stabilised, made the stand as well.

Thanks for dropping by and having a look at a few of the things that I've been up to. I would post more photos but I have to go off to work on that Ming bowl, 2 Sung dynasty vases, a Meiji censor, a Meiji butsodan, this that and the other.....

New Studio

Hello all and sundry, hope everything is going well and dandy for you all. As you can guess from the title, I have a new, larger, studio. It's awesome. Polished floorboards and the works, new stuff galore and enjoying it immensely. Finally feeling like an established studio.

I have been extremely busy of late, hence the lack of posts, but I will try and make up for it in the next few months. Considering my computer is in my studio now I may even try to figure out how to do a live feed from here... could be interesting.

Anyways, have some photos of recent stuff....

Bohemian porcelain basket, somewhat damaged. (before)

Porcelain Basket drying (after)

I have been working on a lot of private collections that predominantly deal with antiquities, sadly I am not allowed to photograph them to display publicly, but when I do get another chance to do so, I will.

Porcelain Candleabra that was dropped (before)

Porcelain Candleabra finished (after)

Thank you all from dropping by and having a looksee. Feel free to comment or to drop me a line via gmail.

Cahl.

More works in progress....

Hello everyone, once again I have been snowed under with the amount of works I have on the boil. Sorry for not posting more frequently but I'm under the hammer as such. The last two months have been, well, hectic. I have started doing Antiquities recently and frankly, it's been freaking me out. It is a very strange headspace to be working on a piece that is 2000 years old. I've always been of the method to try and attain the same techniques as the original artist and achieve some kind of sympathetic result. It's very taxing but well worth the extra effort.

Anyways, here are a few photos, enjoy.

A pair of Art Nouveau chalkware vases from 1910-20, they look in much better shape now.

Centre piece is a bronze Indo -Chinese statue from 400 AD. Around the base are rings from various countries, predominantly the Middle East.

These are probably the most stunning ivory carvings that I have ever seen. From China, about 1870-1910.

Art Deco lamp, need I say more?

Chinese Rosewood sculpture. Amazing piece that had been neglected for about 30 years, he weighs roughly 125 kgs. My studio is on the 3rd floor, ow.

Far left, Kohl bottle in the shape of a bird 50 AD. Background right, Bactrian horse amulet, bronze 5 BC. Foreground, 3 Mongoose coffins from Egypt, 25 BC

Well, as you can see I have had a wide array of pieces coming through my door at the moment, some of the pieces are a tad weird but that's the luck of the draw with what has been made in the past. I look forward to seeing what is going to need help in being restored for the future.

Thanks for dropping by,

Cahl.

Current photo of studio...

Hello all. This is the current state of affairs with my studio space. The space itself is 6ft x 6ft. It's full.
There is also more repairs coming in as of today and thankfully they are of small bronzes from Indo-China. As they say, when it rains, it pours but this is decidedly monsoonal....

left to right: Chinese vase from 16th century, John Bell sculpture, William Ricketts sculpture, Various Moore pieces, 2 Oil paintings from the late 1890s,  Moorecroft bowl, Japanese lacqureware piece, Victorian crystal vase, 2 French Deco chalware vases and a pair of 1910 scrimshaw pieces. Oh, then there are the bronzes which I forgot to mention.

Now then, I may or may not be able to continue with blog updates due to being hellishly busy but I will try to add photos and snippets over the next weeks or so.

Thanks for dropping by, now go and smash something and support your local business.

Makers Marks, references. FOR FREE!

Hello one and all again. I've discovered through internet research that a lot of makers marks sights are restricted, you want the makers marks? well, pay a subscription fee. I am not really on board with this idea, sure, it's a good way to earn a little but in the long run it just makes people angry in not being able to access once free information. In the next couple of weeks I will be compiling links to websites and a lot of my own personal references.

Enjoy.

Here's the first lot from Italy. Book reference, The Book of Pottery and Porcelain by Warren E Cox. first published, 1944. great book.

Arabesque water carrier Lady (plaster). EPIC RESTORATION.

Hello Readers, sorry for not updating for a while, I've been busy. This particular piece was a nightmare as much as it was a fun adventure in restorations.This lovely lady is from about 1890-1920 and I'm presuming that she is from a French maker or at least a European manufacturer. She has a makers mark stamp on the back of her and for the life of me I can't find it and it really bugs me because I'm sure that I have seen it somewhere before in my research into makers marks over the years.

On the left, you can see that she was in a very bad state when I first saw her (sorry about the photo). Her right arm was smashed to pieces and her left arm, which does exist was not attached in this photo, She also had an attempted repair to her right arm using some kind of flexible mastic which was painted over in a very basic fashion.

Right, the makers mark which has eluded me at every page that I have read through about marks.


I have come to a dead end, any help would be greatly appreciated. Click image for a larger picture.





Upon seeing her in this state I took upon myself to get her back to a stable state. So the journey began.
After transporting her back to my studio at home (which is up 3 flights of stairs. She weighs roughly 40kgs) I had a proper look at the damage.

 Left, you can see that her left arm had been snapped off at some point. Thankfully this was a clean break and fairly easy to repair.

     



  Right, you can see the damage in better detail to her right arm. This was after I had removed the flexible mastic and taking a chunk out of my own hand in the process












 Left, is left arm (with the clean break) and various other pieces of the right arm, complete with weird pins that I knew nothing about the function of, yet...







 Now, during this process of reassembling this messy puzzle, I received a phone call from one of the owners of this piece stating that they had found something that looked like it belonged to the sculpture. Two metal bars that looked as though they sat on her shoulders as a yoke for bearing baskets of some sort. I wish they had found it before I had done this to what I thought was a non functional bit of damage.....

Left, at the base of her hair you can see where I had plastered over the hole thinking it was damage done over the years. I was wrong.

Also you can see the basic filling and re sculpturing that I had started for the right arm.

Above photo, you can see her with her fully reattached arms and the work that I have done to the rest of the sculpture. Dings and chips everywhere. Front piece of dress smashed, chips on the base and in the hair and some smashed fingers added in just for fun, not. She's a pretty big sculpture, standing at about 3ft 3 in oldschool, 100cms in metric and as stated before, about 40 kgs.

Now for the fun of colour matching about 5 different coloured oxides. Oxides are what I presumed they are due to their matte nature in their finishing. I have a neat technique that uses baby powder to recreate the finish, but you never read that, and shh, don't tell anyone.

Above photo,you can see the extent of the damage done to the back of her. I can estimate that during the course of her life that at one point she was carrying baskets and someone had pulled down or filled said baskets and smashed all the housing (in her hair) to smithereens. Finding the way that the yoke fittings naturally sat was a complete nightmare and I wish this upon no one else.You can also see both arms have been undercoated with a rough colour match.

In this photo (above) you can see the way that I have re sculptured the hair, the housing channel and part of her left shoulder. I followed the underlying paint marks for the flow of the hair and just went with it. I had no photographic references for any of this work and I hope that I haven't made adjustments that far off from the original mark for the integrity of this sculpture.

 Hair finished. Looking good, now to finish the rest of the colour matches all over the piece.....

Finished colour match for arms, yokes, hair and gold. The base was filled and colour matched as well. I am am pretty happy with the final results.

A long process of a couple of weeks but I think the final result is pretty in line with the way she was originally. Hopefully she will be around for another couple of hundred years or so and be enjoyed by future generations or by an owner that falls in love with her like I did.

Thanks for dropping by and having a read about the processes of restorations, drop by again next time for a new adventure. Cheers from me, Cahl.

Mame pot, restored.

Piece that I have been currently working on is a Mame bonsai pot from a really nice guy, Scott Jackson, that was introduced to me through Lindsay Farr at the Bonsai Farm here in Melbourne. The base was all chipped and luckily the signature for the piece hadn't been destroyed. It's a nice pot and I wanted it to be restored back to all its glory and still have the ability to be used..... Anyways, here's the 80's montage, come up with your own music.

Chipped all over the place

The rough fill

A bit of getting things right, the curve on the left had to be redone after painting because it didn't sit right to the eye.

The final piece. A bit rough here and there but I had to wait for a couple of days to see how the paint would lie when dried. Then you wait, if it isn't correct, sand down and start again. I may of done this but that would be admitting to me being a perfectionist.

All said and done, the finished piece is back to its former beauty. Cheers, Cahl.

Meiji kutani (?) umbrella stand.

This repair is self explanatory through the following photos. One thing the photos can't convey though is the weight of the umbrella stand, probably about 10-13kgs of cylindrical nightmare. Trying to keep it stable while fiddling about with mending it was a very tiny challenge but fun none the less. Enjoy

62cm in length, 2ft (oldschool)

!!

Busy times.... sorry.

Here you go, some more of what I have been working on. Also just had my first ever client that jipped me. Oh well, what can you do? Anyways, enjoy the photos....

The before part, someone had knocked the top handle off, completely and lost all the pieces.

The after. I tried to follow the remainders (footprint) of what had been broken off.
I am happy due to from the piece that I made being nearly identical to a piece from the same era that I had found through some research..

This guy is very similar to the Maneki Neko that I had to restore due to part of it being dust that I had to remake, repaint and just have some general fun in restoring.

Finished Satsuma Lamp.

Finished Satsuma lamp, original wood base with a new electrical fitting. The light socket/fitting was sourced from a manufacturer that uses the original designs from the 1920-40s with modern features, in this case, not so modern. I have left it unwired to allow for any world wide current issues.

In other news, it is currently 42 degrees celsius. I went cycling around in this hellish heat to find that light fitting and you know what? It was worth it. Made a new network connection with a local electrical supplier who will be giving me discounts in future. Anyways, here it is, the finished Satsuma lamp, enjoy.

Piece is for sale as well, contact me through here or at snoitalever@hotmail.com

Thankyou.

Update for Satsuma lamp.

Here are some more photos showing the progression of the Satsuma lamp. The light fitting is going to be replaced with a vintage brass bayonet base to keep in line with the age of the piece. The rest will have little bugs here and there sorted. Enjoying the work immensely. Thanks for dropping by to have a look.