Mission Impossible?

Remember back in January Coxsoft Art reported on some clot taking a tumble down a flight of stairs in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and demolishing three 17th century Chinese vases from the Quing Dynasty? Well, ceramic conservator Penny Bendall has spent three months gluing together 113 pieces of vase No 1. In the picture shown she's retouching the coloured enamels. This vase recently went on display in an exhibition suitably entitled Mission Impossible? Ethics and Choices in Conservation, which closes on 24 September 2006.