Statue of Buddha, National Museums Liverpool, UK

Project start date: 2002-01

Project end date: 2002-12

"This project by Conservation Technologies, National Museums Liverpool, was concerned with recording and digital reconstruction of a 13th-century Japanese statue of Buddha in the World Museum Liverpool. The subject of this investigation was a 70cm-high wooden sculpture probably made in Japan during the Kamakura period (1185 – 1333). Painted floral decoration visible today was applied during the later Edo period (1600 – 1868). There are also other changes in the original appearance and some features are missing. There are abrasions and other marks which indicate that the Buddha originally wore a topknot hairpiece, metal crown, a forehead jewel and necklace; these lost pieces were digitally reconstructed. Physical reconstruction of the missing parts would alter the sculpture considerably. However, by using 3D recording it was possible to create a virtual computer model of the Buddha and replace the missing elements. The model was obtained by laser scanning the statue and working on the digital model with SensAble's Phantom arm (haptics device developed by SensAble Technologies) and Freeform software". Thanks to Anna Bentkowska-Kafel of 3D VisA for this description (source http://3dvisa.cch.kcl.ac.uk/project98.html )