This handsome publication accompanies the exhibition outcome of a collaboration between the Berlin Antikensammlung and the Getty Museum that focuses on the conservation history of a group of Apulian red-figure vases, originally found and restored in the early nineteenth century. The joint project originated in 2008, in the light of an increasingly obvious need to attend to the poor state of their original conservation, some 200 years old and showing many signs of wear and tear and damage inflicted in World War II. This provided an opportunity to investigate the ethics and techniques of the original conservator, and to restore the vessels according to current best practice. It also allowed the participants to consider the effects of removing the restorations, and the impact this has on current responses to the vessels.

The group consists of thirteen very large vases, found in fragments, probably in three adjacent tombs, at Ceglie del Campo, near Bari, and acquired by Baron Franz von Koller, who amassed a very large collection of antiquities while operating as an Austrian military attaché in Naples; he consigned the baskets of sherds to the well-known restorer, Raffaelle Gargiulo, also in Naples, in an environment in which reconstruction and restoration of ancient artefacts was increasingly a questioned practice. The ‘Dangerous Perfection’ of the publication title refers to a view expressed in 1813 by the contemporary antiquarian James Millingen on the ethics of Neapolitan vase-restoration, which made it difficult, often with intent, to distinguish ancient from modern. Gargiulo's practice, which involved the sale of both ancient artefacts and convincing ‘impostures’ led to legislation by the Bourbon authorities in 1818, which demanded that restorations should be left evident and visible. Gargiulo's own publication on the techniques of manufacture of Greek vases, first issued in 1831, provides an important insight into the level of expertise which underwrote his process. It becomes clear, too, not least from the outcomes of the project's own investigation, that he intended his restorations and repairs to last; we note the conservators’ comments on the difficulties of contending with the shellac glue he invented.

The current volume gives the contributors to the project an opportunity to assemble not only a very handsomely illustrated catalogue of the Ceglie vases, but also the outcomes of their research on the context of their original restoration. M. Dufkova and K. give us a comprehensive contextual history of the vases themselves from discovery to the newly re-united ensemble of restored vessels for the Getty exhibition. S., M. Svoboda and A. Milanese collaborate on an account of Gargiulo's history, practice and context, which also provides a commentary on the surviving contemporary evidence of his techniques and materials; we are given plenty to absorb on the discoveries the conservators made in the difficult process of disassembling the vases and removing his additions. The catalogue, authored by a number of the contributors, adds to the detailed descriptions of the individual items by including a commentary report on their original condition, including an analysis of the outcomes of viewing under variously manipulated lighting. The entries conclude with a note on the treatment the vase received. Each entry also has photographs which record key elements and discoveries of the process. Milanese then provides a neat and informative overview of the importance of Gargiulo's publication, which then follows in a deft and accessible translation by the late M. Weir, to whose memory the volume is dedicated, with facsimiles of the plates, from the 1843 second edition.

In essence, the volume provides a case study in the techniques and ethos of the current trend in conservation, which aims to restore the object to a condition which exhibits only its surviving original material, and removes later interventions designed to reconstruct any missing elements, and particularly those which could be viewed as forgeries. The obvious fact that this framework lies in direct opposition to the earlier ethics of restoration to a perceived original state underlies the research which contributed to the project and its publication. As such, it is an engaging and valuable contribution to an ongoing debate on the nature of restoration. Interestingly, it parallels, in many ways, the issues now involved in the continuing vivid discussion about the right way to restore the severely fire-damaged Mackintosh Building of the Glasgow School of Art – what do we really mean by the ‘original’ state, and perhaps even more, are we losing something of serious value by obliterating the later restorations and additions which are part of the object's story?