In 2019 the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London acquired a pair of c.1771 carved and gilded tables with marquetry tops and pier mirrors by Thomas Chippendale (1718-1779) as part of an arrangement to offset UK inheritance tax. This allowed the objects to remain in their home, in the Music Room at Harewood House in Yorkshire. Acquisition funding allowed V&A conservators and curators to research and examine the objects in detail and carry out an in-depth conservation treatment. The gilding on the table frames had undergone several phases of restoration that obscured the original crispness of the carved detail, resulting in an overall patchy appearance. Close visual examination, coupled with cross-section analysis, established that the original Chippendale gilded surface, highly intricate in combining both oil and delicately contrasting burnished and matt water gilding, was largely intact under the many layers of later overgilding. The marquetry tabletops and mirrors had also been subjected to various campaigns of repair. This article presents the conservation treatments carried out including some innovative techniques to clean the gilding. Research carried out into historical documents referring to their original commission and later campaigns of restoration relating to repairs found on the objects is also discussed as it underpins the conservation decisions made and treatments carried out to return the objects closer to their original appearance.
This study investigates the dyeing properties of safflower red (Carthamus tinctorius) in two traditional forms-fermented dried safflower cake and dried petals-on silk textiles. Drawing on historical Chinese texts and current Japanese conservation practices, the research examines differences in the dyeing properties of the two forms. Methods such as solubility testing at various pH levels with organic solvents, colour measurement, UV-induced fluorescence imaging (UVIVF), thin-layer chromatography (TLC) and high-performance liquid chromatography with photodiode array detection (HPLC-PDA) were employed to examine differences in appearance and chemical composition of the two forms of safflower-red dye as well as the dyed silk. UVIVF revealed that safflower-red-dyed silk exhibits strong orange-red fluorescence under a 395-400nm excitation which offers a simple diagnostic tool for differentiating safflower red from other alum-mordanted natural red and purple dyes on silk. TLC using n-butanol separated six compounds in the cake-dyed silk but only five in the petal-dyed silk. TLC using ethyl acetate and methyl ethyl ketone showed two compounds were absent from petal-dyed silks compared to cake-dyed samples. Analysis of the same samples with HPLC-PDA using a reverse-phase column and sodium phosphate and acetonitrile as the mobile phase, identified 15 shared compounds, including carthamin and apigenin. Eight of these compounds appeared in significantly lower quantities in petal-dyed silk, which possibly explains the absence of the three compounds separated by TLC. The findings demonstrate differences in dyeing performance and chemical profiles when using fermented safflower cakes or dried petals to dye silk. Further investigation is required to confirm with more certainty if the two can be differentiated from analysis of safflower-red-dyed silks. The study supports the combined use of both historical and scientific methods to identify safflower red in historic textiles and offers practical tools for its analysis and conservation.
Metal parts corrode when mounted in direct contact or proximity to organic materials in musical instruments. In an ongoing long-term survey, around 1260 musical instruments from 12 museum collections in eight European countries have been investigated to date. In 13.8% of the instruments, a contact corrosion phenomenon was observed. The affected instruments included all instrument families, independent of their provenance, production date or state of playability. There is a considerable risk for loss of material on stringed and keyboard instruments where steel strings corrode in contact with fabrics, leather, wood or plastic despite a controlled climate. Results from the survey will be continuously updated with a customised analysis tool available on a dedicated website, where further contributions are welcome via an online questionnaire. The survey identifies key materials which are specifically at risk, thus enabling prioritised conservation measures and more targeted conservation research.
A twentieth-century painting on canvas that had been rolled was treated to address a heavy dirt layer, canvas tears, and widespread paint flaking and loss. The tacking margins were reinforced to allow the painting to be stretched on a new secondary support and severe deformations were brought into plane. This article describes the treatment, focussing particularly on the challenging aspects, which arose from the painting's very large size and extensive damage. The article also presents research and analysis that aimed to understand aspects of the artwork, as the details and provenance of the painting, which depicts the foundation and development of the Soviet Union, were not known. The research and treatment were completed within limitations imposed by the client's budget and the context of a private conservation practice, where project constraints often limit opportunities to provide student training and experience as well as publication of treatments. The article outlines the challenges and non-financial opportunities for sharing information and providing training that the project presented and reflects the decisions and learnings that arose.
The preservation of human anatomical remains in teaching collections can, under very specific circumstances, play a role in education and research, allowing an in-depth and respectful study of the human body and its complexities. However, their preservation-including documentation, communication, management and ethics-permeates disciplinary issues that directly link to discussions around decolonisation and interdisciplinarity. The objective of this study is to develop a theoretical account of the preservation for legacy human-remains collections that is grounded in consent, proportionality, dignity and epistemic justice, one that orients (but does not predetermine) their future musealisation. The approach adopted and reported here is based on a literature review and practical experience preserving human remains at the Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de S & atilde;o Paulo (FMUSP) Pathology Collection.
This study investigated the socio-economic and environmental impacts of preservation and conservation practices in selected academic libraries in Kwara State, Nigeria. The study adopts cross-sectional research design. The social impacts of preservation and conservation practices include the enhancement of societal progress and understanding, enhanced learning by providing diverse perspectives in relation to communal issues, improved cultural heritage awareness, and the preservation of rare artefacts. The economic impacts of these practices include reducing financial burdens, reducing the need for frequent replacements of library materials, and optimising budget allocation by extending material lifespan. The environmental impacts include the support for waste minimisation and the reduction in the environmental impacts of library operations. The study showed that the challenges associated with the adoption of eco-friendly conservation practices include a poor maintenance culture and the absence of preservation policies. The article recommends that academic libraries in Nigeria should invest in modern energy-efficient equipment for long time preservation of their assets.
Conservators working with red rot damaged leather bindings sometimes do not use personal protective equipment (PPE). An exploratory investigation into the health and safety aspects of such work was performed to help inform handling practices. Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) was used on artificial sweat extracts of deteriorated leathers to quantify the elements of concern (As, Pb, Cr, Co, Cu, Cd, Ni, Ba and Se) according to ISO standards. Levels above the permissible limits defined by OEKO-TEX (R) of As, Cd and Pb were detected in several deaccessioned samples of vegetable-tanned bookbinding leathers from the Natural History Museum, London, some of which had also been dyed or have a pigmented surface finish. The study found that ICP-OES (optical emission spectroscopy) was only sensitive for Cr and Ba and that scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX) was unsuitable for detecting or quantifying the elements of concern. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) could be useful after further experimentation. Based on the results, PPE is recommended for all work where red rot is present and further tests are suggested.
This study sought to examine sustainable preservation practices in Indonesian special libraries. The study reveals current practices around sustainable preservation across five aspects: policies and regulations; energy saving; preventive conservation; sustainable actions that support the implementation of conservation measures; and waste management. The lack of financial support emerged as a significant barrier, while collaboration was viewed as a significant opportunity. The study applied quantitative approaches to collecting data by distributing a survey form to 10 selected special libraries in Indonesia. The study highlights how respondents at special libraries are building sustainability into their preservation activities and subsequently provides recommendations which are applicable to other libraries. Since studies addressing sustainable practices in library preservation in special libraries receive relatively little attention, this study offers a novel perspective on sustainable preservation methods in special libraries.
This article explores the relationship between care, digital preservation and technology using a variety of storytelling methods. It moves between personal narratives, case studies, theoretical frameworks and technical explanations, to demonstrate that care is a continuous and attentive practice in digital preservation. By blending technical details with sensory experiences, it highlights the active relationship between technology and care. This unconventional approach challenges the traditional divide between humans and technology in preservation, suggesting that technology can also be a form of care. As such, the structure of the text reflects its main argument: digital preservation is not a static task but a collective, sustained and socio-technical practice involving both human and non-human actors in a dynamic network of care.
This article explores heritage conservation as a situated, relational and political practice, grounded in the ethics of caring with. Drawing on a 9-month collaboration with the Memory Group of Trafaria, Portugal, the study examines how memory work and participatory methodologies can challenge traditional, object-centred conservation models. Through the co-creation of a digital archive, exploratory walks and affective encounters, the project engaged with local narratives of place, loss and identity. Rather than seeking consensus or historical 'truths', the process embraced divergent memories and emotional labour as central to conservation. The article argues that caring for heritage must be reframed as caring with communities-an open-ended, reciprocal practice attentive to power, trust and the social dynamics of remembering. It concludes by reflecting on the tensions and possibilities of working relationally within constrained institutional settings, and on the ethical demands such an approach places on both researchers and practitioners.
This article proposes attunement as an embodied methodology for conservation practices, grounded in relationality, intra-dependence and affective responsiveness. Borrowing from agential realism and posthumanist, queer, feminist, Indigenous, Black and anti-colonial scholarship, it critiques dominant conservation frameworks rooted in settler colonial and capitalist logics that prioritise extraction, certainty and control. In contrast, it explores how caring for artworks-as-cultural-heritage-and as emergent, indeterminate parts of the world-requires attentiveness and responsiveness to the ethical, political and affective dimensions of artworks and their extended material-discursive ecologies. Attunement is positioned as a practice of listening-with and allowing oneself to be stilled, reconfigured and mobilised toward more reciprocal and coalitional ways of knowing and doing. Recognising that the knowledge we produce is not neutral but intra-actively constituted through our methods, this article foregrounds attunement as a methodological counter to the epistemic violence enacted by extractivist, habituated and universalising conservation practices. It invites conservators to reckon with the inheritances and violences of colonialism and capitalism in their work-including around how knowledge is generated and recorded-and to imagine conservation as part of a broader practice of solidarity work, relational care and world-making.
This article critically examines the visual models that represent conservation decision-making, arguing for a shift from linear, exclusionary frameworks toward inclusive, reflexive and systems-based approaches. Traditional models, such as decision trees, flow diagrams and scoring matrices, offer structure and clarity, particularly for novice practitioners. However they can oversimplify complex realities, prioritising measurable outcomes and technical certainty over subjective, emotional and ethical dimensions. These models risk narrowing our perspectives on care by marginalising stakeholders, reinforcing hierarchies and excluding diverse perspectives, particularly in sensitive or contested heritage contexts. We use case studies and examples including the Hillsborough disaster archive to discuss how prioritising material preservation over access and social responsibility can result in profound failures of care. In such cases, the conservator's role must shift from control to facilitation, recognising that true care may lie in enabling others' engagement with heritage. To address the limitations of the dominant visual models for conservation decision-making, the article proposes a systems-thinking approach that embraces complexity, interconnectedness and change. The care that conservators offer is reframed as a dynamic, co-evolving practice shaped by relationships across time, space and disciplines. A double helix model is offered that visualises this interplay, integrating material and socio-cultural dimensions of care. This model supports adaptive, feedback-informed decision-making that aligns technical actions with cultural meaning and long-term sustainability. Our care should value plural perspectives, embrace uncertainty and reposition conservation as an enabling, collaborative practice. By reimagining how care decisions are described we can better reflect the lived realities of heritage and the communities it serves.
This article draws from three years of work as an objects conservator and postdoctoral researcher on a stores move project at the University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Through preventive risk management, handling, stabilisation and documentation, the following reflects on the effects of dissociation, standards of care and safe access for over 300,000 objects-including archaeological stone tools, food storage containers, ritual objects, garments, weapons, toys, and musical instruments-collected around the globe and brought to the UK over the past two and a half centuries. Many of these lack reliable documentation about their function, condition and originating contexts. Using case studies from the move project, the article reflects on how and by whom the loss of information about an object's standards of care can or should be remediated, and how dissociation influences long-term risk management in practice. It also suggests how safe handling and multi-sensory access might be used to cultivate engagement and shared value for even unprovenanced or under-documented collections.
This article explores preventive conservation as more than a technical discipline. We approach this inquiry through a lens of reflexivity (sensu Bourdieu), informed by our professional experiences across diverse institutional and cultural contexts in Latin America, Southeast Europe and Norway. From this standpoint, we revisit core disciplinary concepts such as risk management, standardisation and museum storage, exploring how notions of care and ethics of care might reframe them. Through case-based reflections, we illustrate how prevailing practices and standards can reinforce inequalities, limit accessibility, and potentially challenge relationships between people and heritage. We also bring to light dimensions of preventive conservation work that often remain invisible or tacit, and are backgrounded as secondary to technical expertise, yet are essential for care-centred approaches to both people and objects. As a result, we call for a broader understanding of 'environment' in preventive conservation, one that moves beyond metrics to include institutional contexts, social relations, and power dynamics. This shift invites a move from control to collaboration, where care becomes a conceptual and operational principle embedded in institutional frameworks.
Framing conservation as a care practice, albeit a privileged one, has proved productive in articulating connections between conservation and wider social and political concerns. The discourse on care situates conservation within the broader effort to 'maintain, continue, and repair our world'. This framework highlights the embodied and affective practice of conservation as something with material consequences that 'we do and feel'. In embracing conservators as subject to affective responses, ethical dilemmas, psychological stressors and competing demands, this paper asks how the affective turn might change the way we think about managing conservation. Building on scholarship from adjacent fields, acknowledging how our understanding of this work is revealed through the tensions that emerge through our practices as set within the specifics of time and place, key elements from an ethics of care and their intersection with the management of conservation are explored.
As conservators increasingly acknowledge the relational nature of collections care and the impact of our professional work on people, the value of an object increasingly rests on the significance that people attribute to it. Conservators are providing transitive care for people through the act of caring for objects valued by the community, and efforts are strengthened by including community members in the care process. This approach foregrounds building trusting relationships in sometimes fraught circumstances through collaborative partnerships and long-term commitment. Our case studies illustrate diverse applications of an inclusive caregiving conservation approach. They include an archaeological textile conservation project, pre-disaster Alliance for Response initiatives, and Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative heritage community support efforts in disaster contexts. Cultural recovery is an act of caring for people by caring for objects; including people who are not conservation specialists in this process exemplifies the relational nature of providing care.
The National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) recently developed new procedures to care for textiles classified as human remains-garments worn at the time of death or associated with burials. The inclusion of Trayvon Martin's clothing in an exhibition initiated this work. Martin, just 17 when he was killed in 2012, became a national symbol in the fight against racial profiling and gun violence. His parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, entrusted NMAAHC with the garments he wore that day. Acknowledging that standard conservation methods were not appropriate, a collaborative team-including a textile conservator, collections specialist and cataloguer-came together to create guidelines centred on reverence, empathy and respect. This work built on NMAAHC's existing policies for sensitive collections. New guidelines support museum professionals in caring for emotionally and culturally significant items, fostering a more compassionate and nuanced approach to stewardship.
