‘Fasting Buddha’ damaged during cleaning

Amber Larson (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly; Shoaib Ahmed (dawn.com, June 26, 2014)

The Ascetic Siddhartha or "Fasting Buddha," Lahore Museum (file, dawn.com)

 

LAHORE, Pakistan - The jewel of Lahore Museum, the Fasting Buddha sculpture, carries a fresh scar, the legacy of an amateur attempt at "repairing" one of its arms after an accident during cleaning.

 

The Buddha had two fingers on its right hand missing and an old crack on its left arm. The crack was opened up a couple of years ago while the staff was cleaning it, Dawn.com was told by an art lover and conservationist on Wednesday.

 

Just use this epoxy. - Really? (dawn.com)

Later investigations confirmed the "accident," and the subsequent careless repairing by staff at the museum's lab, their restoration effort failing to go beyond the application of a common adhesive that did more to damage it than to restore it. The incident happened in the Gandhara Gallery on April 4, 2012, museum sources revealed.

They say the statue was “repaired” by staff in the museum’s lab like an ordinary object instead of implementing modern scientific methods of conservation.

Gandhara Gallery Chief Muhammad Mujeeb told Dawn.com on Wednesday that the conservation laboratory staff had filled the crack in with simple epoxy. More  

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