I acquired a pile of pottery fragments. I like to have an occasional restoration project.

Put together they form two large figures. One is 95 percent complete, and depicts a zodiac figure, the snake. The other one misses the head, and a piece from the side. I
glued them together and they are impressively big, 40 cm.

The red pottery is porous, and smell intense like old pottery. The decoration is cold painted over a white slip. There were some old restorations, but the pieces fit perfect. I decided to restore the snake to the best of my abilities, and leave the other one as is.

The key to restoration is to leave anything original untouched. I filled in the cracks, and the few small missing bits. Then I painted those bits over with watercolour.

The figures are dotted with black mould spots, even on the inside. It seems that the white slip attracted this mould.

These zodiac figures in this size seem very rare, especially from the Tang dynasty.

It is a bit of a weird fellow, combining an almost Greek body with a snake head.

It came out pretty well.

collection-nr 04-2014