The Tiger Balm Garden – On Sculptures

The Tiger Balm Garden and its adjoining mansion were built in the 1930s in Hong Kong. Apart from the unique architectural features, all mural paintings and sculptures in the Garden also left visitors with indelible impressions. The lion and the tiger sculptures made of reinforced concrete, in particular, were the limelight of the Garden.

Both the lion and tiger sculptures were originally aligned with the rockeries in the Garden. Owing to years of exposure to the elements of nature and the lack of proper maintenance, the sculptures was left in a dilapidated condition. In 2015, we endeavoured to restore these two sculptures to their original grandeur so that the public could appreciate their beauty again.

i)The lion sculpture

The pattern on the body of the lion was composed of colourful tiles of ceramics, done by the technique known as "Trencadis" which was rarely found in Hong Kong. The limbs and the tail of the Lion had been severed from the body. Most of the ceramic tiles were covered with other paints and some ceramic tiles were either lost or fractured.

As a first step, we firstly cleaned the paint on the sculpture with a high pressure steam cleaner and a neutral solvent to recover the original colours of the ceramics; then we fired some special bowls which were glazed in a similar colour and cut some sherds from them to replace and restore the missing tiles. Finally, we managed to put back the detached parts of the sculpture to the body using epoxy resin and welding technique so that the lion sculpture could "stand" on its feet again.

ii) The tiger sculpture

The tiger sculpture after its demolition from its original home at the Tiger Balm Garden was in a much better condition than the lion, but the paint of the sculpture was loosened and some had cracked and fallen off quite seriously. For the purpose of preserving the striped pattern on its body at the original position, we adopted a brand new "transposition technique in projection". First, the sculpture was placed on a turntable which was free to turn around 360 degrees. Pictures were then taken at fixed angles and perspectives to record the exact pattern of the body. Subsequently, then all the old paints on the body of the tiger sculpture were completely removed and new patterns were painted on the body using the information collected by the "transposition technique" to recover its former heroic and majestic posture of the tiger.