Conservation and restoration of 10 hand-painted wooden Obstetrics Didactic Panels by the Madrid-born sculptor Enrique Zofío Dávila, from the collection of the Hermes House Foundation*, on display at Skope - Health and Medicine Museum. This work was carried out following a material and technical study, which included taking X-rays of the early paintings, allowing for a deeper understanding of the construction techniques and revealing details such as the use of glass spheres in the execution of the sculptures eyes. Work to be carried out by Maria João Petisca, conservator-restorer.
* The history of the Heres House Foundation begins with a doctor from Aveiro, Hermes de Oliveira Castanhas (1932-2015), who dedicated his life to gynecology and obstetrics, as well as to collecting. He organized the first exhibitions dedicated to the History of Medicine and, later, at the Dr. Hermes House-Museum, the family's private museum in Aveiro, since the 1990s. In 2018, after his death, the family established the Hermes House Foundation, created to continue the patrimonial legacy represented by the medical collection and, at the same time, to promote, develop and support initiatives of a cultural, scientific and social nature in the fields of protection and promotion of historical, artistic and natural heritage, education, research, health, disease prevention and control, promotion of entrepreneurship, innovation and development, charity and social solidarity. In 2020, the new Medicine and Health Museum – Skope – began to be planned, an ambitious project born under the auspices of the Hermes House Foundation and based on the collection of the Dr. Hermes House-Museum. ©
(in execution)
Acknowledgements Hermes House Foundation © ~ SKOPE Medicine and Health Museum
