Salad dressing face mask to the rescue

‘Restoring’ priceless works of art has never been an easy task. While it might have seemed like a good idea back in the 1960s to cover the porous marble of Michelangelo’s David (and plenty of other valuable frescoes) in an acrylic polymer called paraloid, now it just seems downright insane. But how do you get the toxic coating off once you’ve plastered it on? Not with a nail brush that’s for sure. So step up the face mask.

A team from the University of Florence have discovered a way to make oil and water mix, by using a sugar-like molecule to emulsify them. Like a nanoparticle salad dressing without the vinegar. Or mustard. Anyway, the artwork is draped in thin Japanese paper and then the ‘dressing’ is poured on. This poultice is left on for a couple of hours and hey presto, no more paraloid. This technique only works where the slap happy sixties restorers plastered their paraloid, it’s no help where other damage has been done in the name of restoration. But for David and his compatriots, it’s good news indeed.

Via ABC News Australia. (PHOTO: NZRIC)