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Wall-painting Conservation

Bodhisattva, 15th century, Leh Red Maitreya Temple, mural recovered from white-washed wall by THF in 2006Currently, THF has a wall-painting conservation programme in China and in India's Ladakh region, and some wall-painting documentation and conservation activities in Mongolia.
THF's wall-painting conservation programs has three main aims:

              • research and identify historic wall-painting technologies used within the Tibetan cultural realm
              • train local restorers
              • help to preserve endangered historic wall-paintings
In China, we work with a group of professional restorers and have begun training activities for one local restorer. These include German restorers Christine and Patrick Jürgens, and in the past also Uli Eltgen and Ute Griesser.
In Ladakh, the program is carried out in cooperation with the University of Applied Sciences Erfurt (TFH), Prof. Meinhard Landmann and Suzy Hesse; and Romanian restorer Anca Nicolaescu, whose work has received many awards in her country.

Currently THF has three trainees, in Ladakh Yangchen Dolma and Skarma Lotus, and in Qinghai Ms Choekyi. The two Ladakhi students will spend three months at the Erfurt University (TFH) this year to learn working with tools and technologies in the conservation laboratories.

Current wall-painting THF conservation projects include the Leh Guru Lhakhang, the Leh Red Maitreya Temple and the Alchi Tsatsapuri Temple (Ladakh), the Achung Namdzong cave temple and Ragya Monastery's Gyupa Dratsang (Qinghai). Some reports about these activities are available under the download section.

Ladakh Guru Lhakhang restoration team 05: Suzy Hesse, Yangchen, Skarma and DanielPhoto: the Ladakh Wall-painting conservation team 2005. Suzy Hesse from Erfurt University of Applied Sciences with the two trainees Yangchen and Skarma and overall nice guy Daniel.











Anca Nicolaescu working on 15th-century wall-paintings in the Leh Red Maitreya TemplePhoto: Anca Nicolaescu investigating the 15th century wall-paintings in the Red Maitreya Temple in Leh.








Christine Jürgens cleaning murals in Achung Namdzong Photo below: Christine Jürgens cleaning and stabilizing murals in the Achung Namdzong cave in Qinghai.
Christine Jürgens has also prepared a toolkit for THF's wall-painting program, and we plan to publish here the results of our reserach of wall-painting technologies, such as pigment analysis and analysis of composition of painting layers.