Conservators Who Saved Significant Cultural Objects

Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper, Milan Barcilon led the restoration that ran from 1977 to 1999. Earlier restorations had painted over parts of the mural, and her team worked to uncover what survived of Leonardo’s paint. Look closely at the result and you can see how much of the job was deciding what could be recovered from a painting that had already lost a great deal.

The Star-Spangled Banner, National Museum of American History Thomassen-Krauss led the Smithsonian project that prepared the fragile flag for display again. She helped plan a room flexible enough to treat the flag before the team could examine it closely. Visitors could look through a window as the conservators worked, so the project showed people how much preparation goes into keeping a large textile intact.

Neil Armstrong’s Apollo 11 spacesuit, National Air and Space Museum Young worked on the team that conserved the suit. CT scans let researchers see inside its layers without opening them up. The suit is a good example of how a conservator can learn how a familiar object was put together while keeping materials and seams in place.

Tullio Lombardo’s Adam, Metropolitan Museum of Art Riccardelli was the principal conservator after a pedestal collapse broke the marble into dozens of large pieces and hundreds of small fragments. She worked with other conservators, scientists, and engineers on how to hold and join the pieces safely. An external frame let the team line up the heavy fragments before applying adhesive.

Wall paintings in the tomb of Nefertari, Valley of the Queens Laura Mora and Paolo Mora led the conservation team, with Eduardo Porta coordinating work in the field. They began by surveying the walls and stabilizing the most vulnerable areas while they developed the final treatment. The project shows why a conservator may steady a painting temporarily before deciding how to treat it for the long term.

The Sutton Hoo helmet, British Museum Williams took apart an earlier reconstruction of the helmet and reconsidered how its surviving pieces fit. More than 500 fragments lay on his workbench for months while he studied their shapes and discussed possible joins with colleagues. His reconstruction included pieces that the first attempt had left out.

Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes, Vatican Museums Colalucci, the Vatican Museums’ chief paintings restorer, helped lead the work on the ceiling and The Last Judgment. The cleaning brought brighter colors back into view. His account of the restoration is a way to see how a team reaches decisions about what to remove when centuries of later material sit over a painted surface.

The Declaration of Independence, National Archives Ritzenthaler and Kitty Nicholson examined and treated the founding documents while the National Archives prepared new cases. They opened the Constitution and the Bill of Rights before tackling the Declaration. That sequence gave them experience with the older cases before they handled the worn parchment they were most nervous about opening.

Mark Rothko’s Black on Maroon, Tate After the painting was marked with graffiti, Tate’s team spent months investigating the layers and testing methods on a sample. Barker then spent nine months working on the painting itself, removing most of the surface ink before retouching brought the work back to displayable condition. The sequence shows what testing can tell you before you touch the original.

The wall paintings of Cave 85, Mogao Grottoes Agnew worked on the Getty Conservation Institute team that partnered with the Dunhuang Academy to conserve the paintings. Researchers examined the cave’s conditions and the soluble salts associated with deterioration before testing treatments. The case shows how the state of a wall painting can depend on the room around it.

Johannes Vermeer’s Woman in Blue Reading a Letter, Rijksmuseum Verslype researched and restored the painting in 2010 and 2011. After tests, the project removed yellowed varnish, changing how the blue jacket and the rest of Vermeer’s palette read. Her published account walks through the difference between the painter’s surface and the layers that earlier restorations had left on it.

The hull of the Mary Rose, Portsmouth Schofield joined the Mary Rose Trust as conservation manager in 2012 to help prepare the hull for drying. After years of treating the timbers with polyethylene glycol, the team began drying them in a chamber that controlled the air around the ship. Schofield’s team later used neutron imaging to investigate how the treated wood dries.