The European Fine Art Foundation (which runs TEFAF Maastricht) and the Prince Claus Fund are providing financial support to the DRIK Picture Library in Dhaka, Bangladesh, to preserve a significant portion of a collection of negatives belonging to one of Bangladesh’s most important photographers, Rashid Talukder.

During the Liberation War, Talukder produced numerous iconic photos that stand as testament to the social and political scenario of Bangladesh during that turbulent period. All his negatives were stored, unarchived, in a steel trunk, wrapped in cloth and buried underground: this extraordinary collection is now in a state of decay. The photographic works are unseen as the negatives and slides have not been printed and digitally converted.

There are 155,568 negatives in total, some of which have already been lost through poor storage. The project supported by TEFAF and the Prince Claus Fund will preserve the most fragile 18,000 negatives to provide one of the very few records of the Liberation War. In addition, the project is intended to construct a virtual memoir of one of the most important Bangladeshi photojournalists from that era.

The Executive Committee of The European Fine Art Foundation has also awarded a grant of €50,000 to two interesting and important but very different restoration projects – the reconstruction of The Tower of Nanjing from the de Robien collection at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes and the restoration of The Girl in the Muslin Dress – Symphony in White by James McNeil Whistler (1834 -1903) at The Singer Memorial Foundation, Laren, The Netherlands. The Fund was set up by TEFAF Maastricht in 2012 to provide up to €50,000 in total annually to help institutions around the world restore and conserve works of art in their collections.

Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes (MBAR)

The Tower of Nanjing project focuses on a Chinese tower from Guangzhou that was designed for the European market in the late 17 th century. It entered the collection of the Marquis de Robien around 1740 and was transferred to the museum at the time of the Revolutionary seizures of 1794. The 3.05ft high tower is made up of a wooden structure consisting of eight main blocks of decreasing size, hundreds of meticulously engraved and carved mother-of-pearl fragments, and painted glass plates, which is currently in pieces.

It was believed that all the Nanjing Towers that incorporated mother-of-pearl had disappeared, making the restoration of this piece particularly difficult. A sister-piece of the de Robien cabinet tower has been discovered in Burghley House, England, however, and will be instrumental to its restoration.

The project will involve two phases:

1) The Burghley House tower will be virtually scanned to create a 3-D model to provide the basis of the reconstruction of the de Robien tower.

2) The missing pieces will be crafted from mother -of-pearl, whilst the other decorative elements will be carefully reconstituted and restored in their original materials.

The project also has an educational element, as the creation of the 3 -D actual-size model is ultimately intended for use by the visually impaired public.

The Singer Memorial Foundation

The Girl in the Muslin Dress – Symphony in White (c.1870) by James McNeil Whistler (1834-1903) was acquired by Anna Singer around 1949. Approximately 30 years ago the authenticity of the work was called into question by Dr Margaret McDonald, the acknowledged Whistler expert, and has not since been on display. Recent research conclusively demonstrates that the work is by Whistler and now a delicate restoration project is being undertaken to return it to its original state.

The project requires detailed art historical knowledge as the overall condition of the painting makes it difficult to distinguish the original artistic intention from damage created by previous restoration treatments. In order to maintain the painting’s integrity, a clear distinction between intentional and non-intentional abrasion needs to be created before any retouching is undertaken. Following the restoration of this work, the painting will be on permanent display for two years as part of the Singer Highlights exhibition. The only other painting by Whistler in The Netherlands is held in the Rijksmuseum collection.

Museums and institutions that have attended TEFAF Maastricht are eligible to apply for the grants, which are awarded by an independent panel of experts. Both of this year’s projects are technically complex and demanding.