[ABCLAW]

They knew how the materials worked, and we've pieced together how and why the various steps taken in the aim of conservation were taken.

Here's a 2014 paper on the history of the scroll, including a fairly detailed section on the conservation & restoration efforts since the piece arrived at the British Museum.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291523444/download

[rustacean]

so then argue this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admonitions_Scroll if the thieves know that, how did they dismantle this Chinese painting and remount it with the Japanese painting mounting method?

[ABCLAW]

Because the wooden backing of the Japanese method was used across the board for conservation of most asian silk scrolls because it lends itself very well to conservation and preservation of the piece while also allowing display in museums.

The trade off between this method and keeping the scroll in unmounted silk form was between having a more stable backing for the scroll itself to aid in preservation at the cost of removing the scroll's ability to be bent.

The concern for this scroll specifically was that this scroll was unevenly decayed, had numerous repairs in the past and constant continuing repairs would be needed to mitigate wear and tear - frayed silk ends were already an issue. The standard method of dealing with this issue is remounting, and evidence indicated this scroll had been remounted numerous times in it's history.

The museum decided to affix the scroll and apply a form of sealant, after remounting the edge silk sections (which they literally brought experts over from asia to do). This was done to remove the need to repaint and splice sections in (which was the traditional method of maintaining the piece, but which obviously changes it over time) and mitigate future damage to the piece.

TLDR: just read the link I posted.