Conservators and other museum professionals face a large number of issues involving the mechanical behavior of materials, including questions on craquelure, restoring physically damaged objects, art in transport, or the selection of adhesives. However, science in conservation and museum studies curricula focusses mostly on chemistry. This book fills this important gap in conservation training. It is the first such book written specifically for the conservation community and professionals with little or no background in (mechanical) engineering. It introduces the basics of mechanical properties and behavior of materials and objects with examples and exercises based on conservation practice. More complex issues of mechanical loading and advanced solutions are also introduced.

This handsomely illustrated volume traces the intersections of art history and paintings restoration in nineteenth-century Europe. Repairing works of art and writing about them—the practices that became art conservation and art history—share a common ancestry. By the nineteenth century the two fields had become inseparably linked. While the art historical scholarship of this period has been widely studied, its restoration practices have received less scrutiny—until now. This book charts the intersections between art history and conservation in the treatment of Italian Renaissance paintings in nineteenth-century Europe. Initial chapters discuss the restoration of works by Giotto and Titian framed by the contemporary scholarship of art historians such as Jacob Burckhardt, G. B. Cavalcaselle, and Joseph Crowe that was redefining the earlier age. Subsequent chapters recount how paintings conservation was integrated into museum settings. The narrative uses period texts, unpublished archival materials, and historical photographs in probing how paintings looked at a time when scholars were writing the foundational texts of art history, and how contemporary restorers were negotiating the appearances of these works. The book proposes a model for a new conservation history, object-focused yet enriched by consideration of a wider cultural horizon.

This is a review of 190 years of literature on copper and its alloys. It integrates information on pigments, corrosion and minerals, and discusses environmental conditions, conservation methods, ancient and historical technologies.

This is an indispensible volume for creators, curators, and conservators of installation art. Installation art is an evolving, often ephemeral medium that defies rigid categorization. It has also radically transformed the concepts of space, time, and the experience of art. The conservation field is faced with unique challenges over how best to manage and preserve the essence of these works. How detailed can documentation get? When does the replacement of original components become acceptable? How does the field cope with the obsolescence of certain technologies? By exploring the questions and dilemmas facing those who care for art installations, this book intends to raise awareness and promote discussion about the various conservation approaches for these works.

Despite the perception that artworks are timeless and unchanging, they are actually subject to biological attack from a variety of sources--from bacteria to fungi to insects. This groundbreaking volume, which publishes the proceedings of a conference held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2002, explores how the development of these organisms can be arrested while preserving both the work of art and the health of the conservator.The richly illustrated text, containing the writings of over 40 scientists and conservators, is divided into sections on stone and mural paintings, paper, textiles, wood and archaeological materials, treatment and prevention, and special topics. The artworks and cultural properties discussed include, among many others, Paleolithic cave paintings, Tiffany drawings, huts built by early Antarctic explorers, and a collection of toothbrushes taken from Auschwitz victims.

This book traces the development of scientific conservation and technical art history. It takes as its starting point the final years of the nineteenth century, which saw the establishment of the first museum laboratory in Berlin, and ground-breaking international conferences on art history and conservation held in pre-World War I Germany. It follows the history of conservation and art history until the 1940s when, from the ruins of World War II, new institutions such as the Istituto Centrale del Restauro emerged, which would shape the post-war art and conservation world. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, conservation history, historiography, and history of science and humanities.