Preventive Conservation

Abstract

In 1826, King Ludwig I of Bavaria began work on a new building to house his extensive collection of European paintings. The Alte Pinakothek was constructed on a site that was then well outside the city of Munich, a controversial decision at the time. One reason for the choice of location was simple: it was believed that the clean air would better preserve the paintings. The decision was, in a sense, an act of preventive conservation. Until recently, conservation as a profession devoted itself almost solely to the care of individual objects. Mending or restoring an object-whether a Roman bronze, a painting by Rembrandt, or a Chinese textile-was the primary function of the conservator. Today the demands for conservation can no longer be met satisfactorily by this approach. As both the number of museums and the number of objects within museums proliferate, concentrating exclusively on individual objects severely limits conservation care for the bulk of a collection. Even the most generously endowed institutions lack the financial and personnel resources to provide individual attention to every object in need. For those institutions with fewer funds, sustaining any conservation programme remains a secondary or tertiary consideration. If a major portion of our heritage is to survive, it must be cared for collectively rather than individually. For the conservator this means focusing on ways of preventing or slowing the deterioration of objects through control of the collections environment. It means, in short, preventive conservation.

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