Saving Little Thuy

Painting conservator Caroline Fry returns to Vietnam.

The weight of responsibility to save a national art treasure from the ravages of time must be great but this is what Australian painting conservator Caroline Fry took on with the restoration of Tran Van Can’s painting ‘Em Thuy’ (1943) in 2004. For four months in Hanoi she surveyed every millimetre, every brush stroke, groove and crack of the canvas and then applied a combination of science and great conservation skill to save ‘Em Thuy’ from the accumulation of sixty years of humidity, dust, poor storage, light, over-painting, gecko excreta, pollution and degradation. For her efforts the Vietnamese Government presented her with a medal for ‘contributions to the preservation of Vietnamese art.’ and through the force of her personality and passion for people, art and restoration she also helped create a new culture of care and expertise at the Vietnam Museum of Fine Art in Hanoi, which meant she left behind much more than a restored painting.

So now almost 10 years later Caroline has returned to Vietnam on holiday to reconnect with old friends and to ‘check up on her little girl’. You can’t spend that much time with a beautiful object and not let it somehow permeate your soul and it’s clear that Caroline’s relationship with ‘Em Thuy’ goes deep but is very positive. When you restore a painting you also uncover and relive the past, with every scrape of the scalpel trying to understand and harmonise with the artist’s original intentions, materials and historical context. The conservation process over the four months in 2004 was very public as the Vietnamese art world closely scrutinised every development, but for Caroline it was also intensely personal as she worked day and night in microscopic detail to save the painting. It was a moment of intense pride for all involved when the restored work was shown at the end of Caroline’s time here and ‘Em Thuy’ herself, now an old lady, came for the unveiling.

For Caroline, now so much time has passed, her reflections are more personal and less technical as the inscrutable innocent little girl looks back at her. ‘I’ve grown and aged in the intervening years but she’s stayed the same’ she observes, ‘so like Keats’ Ode On A Grecian Urn;

When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

my reflections are now less about myself as conservator but as a lover of art. Now I can truly appreciate the painting on its own terms’.

Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness!
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time

So what’s left for Caroline ten years since the restoration are old friends at the museum, a love of Vietnam and memories of an emotional four month rescue operation to save a little girl who holds a place in a nation’s heart. It’s not traditional to credit individual conservators on such projects but in Caroline’s case it doesn’t matter, she left her mark by restoring the artist’s and her passion is reflected in the painting’s renewed patina.

Credits: lines 46, 47 and 1, 2 of ‘Ode On A Grecian Urn’ by John Keats

You can see ‘Em Thuy’ on the second floor of the Museum Of Fine Art at 66 Nguyen Thai Hoc Street, Hanoi

Caroline’s Professional profile
John Keats’ Ode On A Grecian Urn’
A story about the painting Em Thuy

Words and photographs by Paul Zetter