The artwork Atelje by the renowned Slovenian painter Gabrijel Stupica is composed of two primary materials: an acrylic painting on canvas and seven attached figurines, along with three paper elements. Due to the poor quality of the paper and improper storage, the figurines began to deteriorate. Damage appeared on them, making their conservation and restoration necessary. We have focus primarily on the development of tests to evaluate procedures for addressing various types of damage, based on which more suitable methods for future conservation-restoration interventions will be selected. This has included the removal of mold that appeared on one of the figurines’ legs, where we will test newer removal methods involving the use of enzymes and bacteria. The analyses carried out have shown that these newer methods yield satisfactory results. We have also focus on dry cleaning, where different materials commonly used in paper conservation-restoration practice were tested. Due to the poor condition of the figurines, they were removed and replaced with printed copies, which subsequently warped. To address this issue, we conducted tests using various anti-warping coatings on specially printed copies of the figurines for research purposes. The tests demonstrated that certain synthetic adhesives are suitable for preventing warping when combined with lining (backing). We also prepared a proposal for the long-term storage of both the fragile originals.
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