About Our Work
Our conservators work closely with curators and exhibition planners to ensure that pieces from our collection and objects on loan are displayed in temporary exhibitions using the highest standards. The condition of each object is assessed before it is selected for an exhibition, and conservators carry out related treatments when necessary to address structural or aesthetic concerns.
The conservation team also includes members who are focused on the overall care and maintenance of the collection. The collection, including the Historic Palace itself, is utilized in many ways, and Conservation provides support for both the safe handling, movement, and storage of the artworks as well as the safe use of the Museum’s spaces for public programming and private events. The ongoing maintenance of the collection for both its aesthetic appearance and as a means of preventative conservation is undertaken by a dedicated team of technicians who work their way through the collections spaces weekly.
About Our Labs
The Poorvu Family Conservation Center is housed in the New Wing of the Gardner Museum. It is here that conservators specializing in the care of paintings, objects, and textiles treat a range of works from the Museum’s collection.
The Paintings Lab carries out conservation treatments on the Museum’s collection of canvas and panel paintings, dating from the early 13th to early 20th centuries. Significant paintings from the collection are often the focal point of special exhibitions and loans.
In the Objects Conservation Lab, conservators care for a wide range of three-dimensional collection materials including sculpture, furniture, decorative art pieces like ceramics, glass and metal, frames, and even the architectural features of the building itself.
In the Textiles Conservation Lab, a variety of textiles that date from the 15th to the 19th centuries are cleaned, repaired, and prepared for display in the Palace galleries. Because textiles are a particularly sensitive material, the department also commissions and creates historic reproductions of pieces long retired from the galleries.
When treatment is needed for works of art outside of our team’s expertise, we bring in conservators who specialize in works of art on paper and architectural stone sculpture, to name a few.
There is a long legacy of conservation work at the Gardner Museum, and we continue that work today through careful examination, documentation, technical study, and treatment to preserve these objects for future generations. This work can often inform what we know about an artist’s technique or work of art itself through. To learn more about the kind of technical analysis carried out by our team, click here.
