The Orientalist Museum in Doha, Qatar holds one of the world’s most significant collections of the Orientalist art movement. The collection consists of approximately 900 paintings, watercolours, drawings and prints, as well as sculpture and applied art. Although it is predominantly a 19th century phenomenon, paintings date from the Renaissance period to present and span the geographical areas of the Middle Eastern and North African Islamic countries.
In 2009 and 2010, the painting conservation and restoration department from Plowden & Smith were asked to undertake several visits to the Museum of Orientalist Art in Doha, Qatar. The Museum was in development stages to open to the public and comprises of paintings by a variety of European painters, including pieces by Dinet, Villegas, Brest and Gerome.
The project began with a condition survey of the paintings in the collection in order to produce reports and recommendations for conservation treatments for each individual painting. From this, approximately 90 paintings were found to need attention. This gave the museum staff the opportunity to prioritise treatments. In addition, a number of paintings were scheduled to go on loan to international museums and so there were rigid deadlines to work to.
A number of different treatments were undertaken over the course of the project. Where time allowed, a number of the paintings were cleaned. Otherwise, many paintings required structural strengthening and improved framing to ensure that they met conservation standards. As a number of the paintings were travelling on loan this was an additional consideration during treatment. Where required, conservation and restoration treatments such as filling, consolidation and retouching were carried out.
The main challenge of the project was undertaking conservation work in situ and a temporary conservation studio was set up by our conservators to work in. This set-up enabled relatively complex treatments to be undertaken at the Museum, which were carried out at a high standard and within a competitive time frame. Only a small selection of resources were available at the Museum and so our conservators prepared key items for shipment, as conservation grade materials and equipment are not readily available in the Middle East.
