Klucel® Greagents:adaptationandapplication as facing in the lightweight sculpture Santiago Apóstol from Izúcar de Matamoros, Puebla

Abstract

After the September 19, 2017 earthquake, the dome of the church de Santiago in Izúcar de Matamoros, Puebla, collapsed on its patron saint Santiago Apóstol, a 16th century monumental sculptural group made with corn stalk paste, resulting in complex effects of deterioration and fragmentation of the piece. The conservation team of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH)’s Taller de Escultura Policromada of the Coordinación Nacional de Conservación del Patrimonio Cultural (CNCPC) encountered important challenges during the mechanical stabilization processes, among them, finding a suitable facing system compatible with the physicochemical characteristics of the polychrome sculpture. During the options research, Tania Estrada Valadez of the Taller de Documentos Gráficos (TDG) of the CNCPC was consulted, and then, the proposal of using remoistable Japanese tissue with Klucel® G –a common method for document conservation processes– was evaluated to be applied as facing system in the Santiago case. The collaborative work between conservation specialties resulted in the discovery that a method intended for documents can be successfully adapted as facing to protect delicate and highly water-soluble polychrome during the conservation processes.