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- UD grad interns help preserve mummies, spacesuit, other cultural treasures
- Bringing a saintly portrait back to life in Missouri
- Conserving a knight's shield from ages past
- Käsebier photographs conserved at National Gallery of Canada
- Examining ancient Egyptian mummies at the Walters Art Museum
- Restoring Southwestern pottery at the Arizona State Museum
- Caring for Maryland's first settlement, Armstrong's spacesuit
- Preserving masterpieces at the Walters Art Museum
- 'Big Four' railroad magnate's paintings undergo conservation at Yale
- Studying indigo dyes at the Smithsonian
- Treating a Moorish Islamic ceiling at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Editor's note: The Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation is one of only five graduate-level conservation programs in the United States. Graduate students in the program spend their third year in an advanced internship at museums and studios around the world.Here, Bret Headley reports on his work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
9:52 a.m., March 19, 2009----The first major project I have undertaken here at the Philadelphia Museum of Art is the conservation of a 15th-century German memorial shield. These shields commonly hung in groups on the walls of a church and were made to commemorate the life of a knight after his passing. This particular shield was made specifically as a memorial although actual jousting shields were used as well. The shield is circular with an inscription around its border. In the center of the panel are two spade-shaped shields that indicate the bloodline of the knight and the knight's wife. These shields are mounted beneath an antlered helm with wings on either side.
The treatment consists of both structural and surface consolidation. The elements that compose the circular foundation for the shield are separating, and one of the antlers on the helm has been broken at its base. The wooden surface of the shield was gessoed and brightly painted. This paint is lifting and cupping away from the surface and is covered with a heavy layer of grime. The lifting paint will be laid back down, and then the surface will be cleaned. After the cleaning is complete, the structure of the shield will be strengthened.