Sir,

This has reference to the news report “In-house Conservation Laboratory at Mysore Palace” (Star of Mysore dated Jan. 23).  While the idea of setting up an in-house Conservation Laboratory for the care and preservation of the many works of art in the Mysore Palace is laudable, the statement made to the press at the end of the Expert Panel meeting, by whoever made it, to the effect that there is no such laboratory in South India at present and ‘everything has to be taken to National Research Laboratory for Conservation (NRLC) of Cultural Property, Lucknow,” is patently incorrect.

First of all, there is the branch of NRLC, Lucknow, the Regional Conservation Laboratory in Mysuru itself.

Secondly, this person seems to be blissfully unaware that there is a front rank Art Conservation Laboratory, the INTACH Chitrakala Parishath Art Conservation Centre (ICKPAC) functioning in the premises of Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath, Bengaluru, since July 1993 and catering to the conservation needs of government as well as private institutions, besides individual owners of works of art. In these nearly 25 years, they have conserved and restored a large number of a variety of art objects, including oil paintings, traditional paintings of the Mysore and Thanjavur schools, paper paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, painted wooden objects, old bronzes etc. They have also helped neighbouring States like Tamil Nadu by carrying out mural painting conservation projects in places like the Sri Rangam temple, the Ramanthapuram Palace and the Thiiagarajaswami temple, Tiruvarur etc.

In Mysore Palace itself, they conserved the Dasara procession paintings on the walls of the Durbar Hall in 1995 and a collection of valuable old bronzes for the Karnataka State Department of Archaeology a little later. In fact they were offered the work of the gold leaf covering of the pillars in the Durbar Hall some years ago but they declined to undertake the work because of certain conditions imposed by the then Deputy Director of the Palace Board.

– S. Subbaraman, Sahukar Channaiah Road, 24.1.2018

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