How To Restore Marble Busts and Statues: A Bust of Caesar Augustus

Here, we show you how we fix and restore a marble bust of Caesar Augustus. Look at our other projects on newmansltd.com/restoration, where we show you how we restore marble statuary, stone art work, fine metal objects, and other art objects.

Caesar Augustus came to us in two broken main sections. One of them, which you see here, is the bust itself. You can see that it is quite dirty. Here at the neck you can see there is a previous deep crack suggesting that the entire head was severed at some point. There is a lot of dirt - take a close look at his nose, and his ears.

This is the socle, or traditional lathe-turned base for a bust. As you can see, it’s had a pretty rough life. Note the section on the lower right that is totally destroyed. In the middle something has exuded from a hidden crack that probably goes across the entire socle, which hints at the reason for the break, and at the top you can see the fracture where the socle has broken away from the bust itself.

First we’re going to do a basic cleaning of both of these pieces so we can see any issues the dirt is hiding from us. The dirt has two levels - surface soil and deep resinous stains. First we’re going to deal with the surface soil with washes, then address the deep stains with a solvent impregnated poultice.

Next, we’re going to analyze the weakness that caused the break in the first place, then design and create a hidden reinforcement, and reassemble the socle and bust.

After the bust is whole once again, we’re going to fill the gap at the bottom of the socle, along with other missing pieces, and grind out and fill the old cracks, like the ones you saw around Caesar’s neck.

Next we’re going to fair the forms at our fills.

Then we’re going to in-paint the fills to match the surrounding surfaces.

Next, we’re going to mount the bust on a pin at the center of Caesar’s stone base to make it entirely stable for display.

And finally, we’re going to apply and buff several coats of wax, to unify the entire reconstruction into a contiguous piece of art.