Reassembling the fragments into their proper positions.
Each fragment was stored in its proper position face down on a sheet of polythene, this was in its turn kept on a piece of rigid perspex. This allowed the ‘jigsaw’ of fragments to be safely moved about and the relative position of the fragments to be reviewed on the glass top table. A chequerboard of white lines was ruled on the surface of the glass top bench in an attempt to ensure that the vertical and horizontal elements of the painting were correctly observed in the reconstruction.
When the relative positions of the fragments were found satisfactory they could be joined together in larger groups, using masking tape at first, and then checked for alignment against groups of fragments belonging to neighbouring sections. At this point, when it was felt that the best fit had been obtained, all the component fragments of the section were permanently united by cementing them together with glass fibre tissue and the PVA/inert filler mixture.
