Materiality, Fragility, and Loss in the Medical Archive
Conservation in Process: The Lam Qua Portrait Collection
This portrait of a female patient at the Canton (Guangzhou) Ophthalmic Hospital was painted by the Chinese painter Lam Qua (1801-60). The painting was commissioned by Peter Parker (1804-88), a medical missionary and diplomat, and the founder of the Canton Ophthalmic Hospital. Yang She is referred to by name in Parker's reports, in which he also describes her medical condition, the type of tumor, the circumstances of the surgery - which he performed - and her subsequent recovery.
Before restoration
After restoration
The work is part of a series of eight-six paintings in Yale's collection, all featuring Parker's patients . Lam Qua painted the portraits on canvas. During conservation, conservators Kathy Hebb and Laura O'Brien-Miller discovered that, at some unknown date, the paintings were removed from their stretchers and mounted onto stiff boards, with a thick layer of adhesive. Unfortunately, for decades, damaging salts migrated from the backing board through the canvas to the painting's surface, leaving a halo-like white film.
Removing the backing presented serious challenges to conservators, as the support contained hard inclusions similar in consistency to industrial slag. The treatment of the portrait of Yang She began in 2019. The main part of the conservation effort was to remove the adhesive and board. Once the backing was removed, the painting was relined with appropriate adhesive and Japanese tissue. The portrait was restretched, framed and is now stabilized. This labor-intensive process was conducted by Kathy Hebb and was completed in March 2020.
The conservators are now preparing to survey the remaining eighty-five paintings, which are all mounted in the same way, and to adapt the conservation process to make it as efficient as possible, while preserving the structural integrity of the portraits.
Conservation images: Kathy Hebb, Laura O'Brien-Miller