`

Conservations

Scale model of the Blue Train

The scale model of the Blue Train, a special, luxury train used for the needs of Josip Broz Tito, was a present from the Factory of Railway Vehicles Boris Kidrič from Maribor and it is a part of the technical collection of the Museum of Yugoslavia. The scale model has been conserved for the purposes of amendment of the exhibition Figures of Memory, during 2017, with the help of expert modelers and ship modelers of the company Panon. Bearing in mind that the object was not exhibited in a long time and that it has never been conserved before, the work on conservation of the scale model was an extensive and lengthy process. While cleaning the scale model, some significant mechanical damages were detected. These damages have been filled by bottling plants and retouched with appropriate acrylic paint in airbrush and then they were painted over with a brush. In the last phase of work, all metal parts of the model have been cleaned of patina and the object was prepared for the exhibition.

Conservation of the painting by Raul Goldoni

Wall painting Life, Suffering and Struggle of the People in the Area of President Josip Broz Tito from the Middle Ages to the Liberation, by Raul Goldoni, is a part of the authentic interior of the May 25 Museum. This monumental picture of 4.4 x 14.6 m was available until 1996 when, due to the needs of the October Salon, it was covered with canvas boards and a plasterboard wall was erected in front of it. After removing the panels and revealing the picture, in 2011, there were visible damages of the paint layer, caused by the passage of mortar through the canvas that covered the picture. Work on the conservation and restoration of the painting was launched in November 2014, in cooperation with the Republic Institute for Protection of Cultural Monuments and the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade. Restoration work on the wall painting brought a significant discovery. Spectroscopic analysis of the paint layer revealed that the wall painting was not done in the encaustic technique, as it was believed, but in the al secco technique, wherein the artist used pigments and polyvinyl acetate as a binding agent for these pigments. It is interesting that the data on the technique of encaustic, which would be used in picture painting, was taken from the contract signed by the painter Raul Goldoni, in 1963, with the Self-governing Community of Belgrade, the purchaser of the picture.