Recently, we conserved a sculpture by the poet Jean-Francois Bory loaned to an exhibition at the Beinecke Library at Yale University. The sculpture is composed of an antique manual typewriter adorned with plastic army men and plastic children's letters and coated with gold spray paint. It was unfortunately damaged in shipment, dislodging the army men and scattering the letters.
We fished out the dislodged pieces from the packaging and from under the typewriter, and reset the machine back onto its base. We repaired damage to the army men (broken ankles, broken rifles) and reset them into position on the typewriter, based on original photos of the work and the unpainted shadows of the piece. We reset the detached letters and retoned damaged areas to match the original surface.
