Conservation

Conservation vs. Restoration

Conservation and restoration are really two extremes of a preservation spectrum. Both have an important role to play. Which methodology you choose depends entirely on the goals you set. Today, museums have moved towards conservation. This choice is guided by the museum's mandate to steward their collections for future generations, and to educate the visitors about the history of their collections.

Your work of art might have significant monetary value. In order to preserve that value, it is important to be meticulous about keeping clear distinction between the original work of art and anything pertaining to the conservation process. Materials used in the conservation process need to be reversible and easily identifiable. The same principles would apply to works of historic significance.

Remembering that restoration and conservation are two extremes of a preservation will help make wise choices that best meet the needs of your specific use case. We can help guide your decision based on careful listening.

The key objectives of Conservation:

To lengthen the life of the object in good condition by arresting decay, and stabilizing the material composition.
To preserve the unique story of an object by keeping some historic repairs.
To maintain easily recognizable differences between materials used in treatment and original materials, referred to as transparency.
To make choices that, as much as possible, allow for the reversibility of the conservation treatment. This allows for the possibility of making different choices in the future, when either the objectives of conservation change, or scientific advancement presents better solutions.
Aesthetically, the goal tends to be for the repairs to not be distracting to the viewer, rather than pretending to be original, ie. honesty of presentation.

We offer:

Condition assessments.
Treatment proposals with cost and time estimate.
Provide detailed professional written and visual documentation provided including pre, during and post conservation treatment that collectively provides an archival history of the artwork that can be used for insurance and sales purposes, as well as future conservation work.
Cleaning, structural stabilization, infills of material loss, color compensation for pigment loss, re-varnishing and more.
Construction of archival housings for storage and display of fragile artifacts.
Packing for shipping.
Coordination of professional insured shipping.

To visit us, please email a request to Katya@RedDragonConservation.com