bdk wrote:
So how much of the Mona Lisa's visible paint is original?
You should be asking about his
Last Supper, which won't even stay stuck to the wall. Leo and his eggs.
bdk wrote:
While it would be nice to duplicate the scheme, this isn't the Mona Lisa. How important is it to have the actual original paint (except to a bunch of Anoraks)? By how much does that increase the value- I suggest it is worth much more as a restored and flying plane, even with non-original paint, compared to what it is worth now as a stinky wreck (and yes, it does smell very fishy).
<Donning Anorak> There's more to 'value' than cash or zooming about. Most recreations of nose art, like the (in-)famous d-day stripes are far too neat. if we want to know how nose are really was, we need to have originals to look at. We are currently creating a sanitised, 'neat' and tidied up version of W.W.II with the current hardware restorations. At the end of the day, they're tools, and like stone age flints or bronze age daggers, original examples tell us stuff about humanity that replica's don't. Like the ghastly 60s hairdos in 60s war movies, modern restorations of original nose art will almost certainly become obviously 'fake' when time intervenes. How we painted or engraved our heart's desires on our weapons is part of everyone's history, and is priceless.
It's easy to be a critic, but proper conservation (yup, that rare word again) means the paint wouldn't have peeled off.
By all means restore the aircraft to fly, (big thumbs up) and recreate the nose art; but spend a little on a piece of history and preserve the original panel by conserving it as well - although it sounds as if it's too late.
Heaven preserve us from the extremes of cowboys flyers
and dusty anoraks.