In 1840 the British Museum acquired, from a private collection, a life-size statue of a youth. The statue, probably a torch bearer, was Hellenistic of the first century BC and had been found at Zifteh in the Nile delta. The extremities and base of the statue had been recast in bronze, probably in the early 19th century. They had been carefully fitted to the surviving parts of the statue and they were held in place by an iron armature which had been embedded in plaster of Paris. The plaster of Paris had absorbed moisture thus causing the iron to corrode. The expansion of the iron caused by the formation of the corrosion had begun to split the plaster and then the bronze itself. Because of this unsightly and physically dangerous deterioration it was decided to remove the statue from its base, remove all old restoration and renew only such parts as were considered necessary for the stability of the object and for modern display.