Mr. Tao Yun (1911 – 2004) was a renowned traditional Chinese painter in Hong Kong, acclaimed particularly for his works of landscape painting.  In 2016, we conserved and remounted three hanging scrolls by Mr. Tao.

All three hanging scrolls were mounted in the typical style found in southern China. The paper borders of the paintings were in poor condition due to the fact that paper borders were not as strong as silk fabric borders.  The paintings themselves were not in good condition.  All of the above issues desperately called for conservation attention.

In one of the two fan paintings in hanging scroll format, the surface was worn out, with creases along the edges. Part of the edges of the painting was raised owing to the loss of adhesion; and the creases were close to the painting, leading to unevenness of the entire scroll.  These problems were caused by the use of inappropriate material for surrounding borders when the painting was first mounted. Besides, the support of the two fan paintings were much thicker than that of the surrounding borders, which had resulted in the uneven surface of the hanging scrolls, with a raised layer of the painting itself against the four sides of relatively thin layer of surrounding borders.  After numerous opening and closing of the hanging scroll, the raised surface worn out and the flat painting surface began to wrap inwards from the edges. Creases gradually formed because the surrounding borders were too thin and weak.  Having ascertained the causes of the damages, we formulated a treatment plan to clean and remount the paintings.

First of all, we cleaned the painting with deionised water, removed the backing and remounted the painting afterwards.

It is the usual practice to remount the paintings in its original format.  Using this method, however, the restored hanging scrolls would be too thick to be rolled and unrolled. The same old problems would recur as time passes.  We therefore decided to remount the paintings in Perspex frame so that they could be kept level and straight under a good storage environment.