Step-by-step instructions and enlightening photos and diagrams thoroughly educate you on parchment and paper care; mattings, hinging and framing; storage; basic conservation procedures; and other relevant topics.

This long awaited English edition of Manuale per la conservazione e il restauro di disegni e stampe antichi (1991) offers a clear and complete manual for the preservation and conservation of old master prints and drawings. The authors throw light on the historical and scientific backgrounds concerning the problems of restoration techniques of arts on paper, from 1150, when paper was first introduced in Europe, until the middle of the nineteenth century. The book is indispensable for anyone occupied with the study and conservation of old prints and drawings. This richly illustrated, first English edition is revised and brought fully up to date.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art houses one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive collections of works of art from antiquities to modern and contemporary material. Their preservation is a responsibility shared by the many individuals employed at the Museum who oversee and have direct contact with the collection on a daily basis. The Care and Handing of Art Objects—first published in the 1940s and continually updated—offers a guide to the best practices in handling and preserving works of art while on display, in storage and in transit. It explains many of the fundamental principles of conservation that underlie these methods. One of its goals is to make the complexities of caring for a collection readily accessible. The first part offers basic guidelines for the preservation of the diverse types of materials and art objects found in the Met. Each chapter addresses the physical characteristics specific to the particular category, and the environmental, handling and housing factors to which one should be alert to prevent damage and ensure their preservation. Written by experts in the respective specialty, it addresses the Museum’s vast holdings summarizing the most critical preservation issues, many of which are amplified by photographs. As the table of contents makes evident these range from paintings on canvas and works on paper and photographs to furniture and objects made of stone, wood and metals to arms and armor, upholstery, ethnographic materials and many others. Part II succinctly describes factors that affect the collection as a whole: among them, current environmental standards for temperature, relative humidity, light exposure, storage and art in transit. Based on Museum protocols it addresses emergency preparedness and response, and integrated pest management. For easy reference, it includes charts on storage and display conditions, on factors contributing to deterioration, and a glossary of conservation terms, principles, and housing materials referenced in the individual chapters. Drawing upon the knowledge of conservators, scientists, and curators from many different departments, as well as technicians and engineers whose expertise crosses boundaries of culture, chronology, medium and condition, The Care and Handing of Art Objects is primarily directed to staff at the Met. It is, no less, an invaluable resource for students, collectors, small museums, museum study programs, art dealers, and members of the public who want to enhance their understanding of how works of art are safeguarded and the role environment, handling and materials play in making this possible.

The 2nd edition of The Care of Prints and Drawings provides practical, straightforward advice to those responsible for the preservation of works on paper, ranging from curators, facility managers, conservators, registrars, collection care specialists, private collectors, artists, or students of museum studies, visual arts, art history, or conservation. A greater emphasis is placed on preventive conservation, a trend among collecting institutions, which reflects the growing recognition that scarce resources are best expended on preventing deterioration, rather than on less effective measures of reversing it. Expanded and richly illustrated chapters include: Supports for Prints and Drawings discusses the properties of parchment and paper and introduces the general preservation needs and conservation problems of all works on paper, regardless of their media. Conservation Problems Related to the Paper Support of Prints and Drawings presents a guide to recognizing the symptoms and diagnosing the causes of damage specific to paper. Conservation Problems Related to the Materials and Techniques of Prints describes the conservation problems that affect certain printmaking materials and arise from specific processes. Conservation Problems Related to the Materials and Techniques of Drawings focuses on the various materials used to create marks on paper. Item-Level Collection Protection: Envelopes, Sleeves, Folders, Enclosures, Mats, Boxes, Frames, and Furniture, discusses measures taken for prints and drawings so that they can better withstand the rigors of handling, examination, exhibition, travel, and adverse environmental conditions. Preventive Conservation for Prints and Drawings describes how the integration of a comprehensive Collections Care Program into a Collections Management Policy can reduce the need for item-level conservation treatments. Basic Paper Conservation Procedures provides instructions on how to stabilize damaged works. How to Make Starch Paste and Methyl Cellulose Adhesive and Suppliers of Paper Conservation Materials and Equipment are appended as well as a Glossary.

Ever since its original publication in Germany in 1938, Max Schweidler's Die Instandetzung von Kupferstichen, Zeichnungen, Buchern usw has been recognized as a seminal modern text on the conservation and restoration of works on paper. To address what he saw as a woeful dearth of relevant literature and in order to assist those who have 'set themselves the goal of preserving cultural treasures, ' the noted German restorer composed a thorough technical manual covering a wide range of specific techniques, including detailed instructions on how to execute structural repairs and alterations that, if skilfully done, can be virtually undetectable. By the mid-twentieth century, curators and conservators of graphic arts, discovering a nearly invisible repair in an old master print or drawing, might comment that the object had been 'Schweidlerized.' This volume, based on the authoritative revised German edition of 1949, makes Schweidler's work available in English for the first time, in a meticulously edited and annotated critical edition. The editor's introduction places the work in its historical context and probes the philosophical issues the book raises, while some two hundred annotati

With the aid of numerous illustrations, this book defines and explains the techniques, processes and materials used in works of art on paper. It is useful not only to those who wish to increase their understanding and enjoyment of prints, drawings and watercolours, but also to those who are thinking of starting a collection.

This illustrated book on mounting prints and drawings covers the materials, working procedures, tools and equipment for safely mounting prints and drawings for display and storage. Stamping methods, cataloguing and studio organisation are also covered. This book, which will appeal to conservators, collection managers, curators and collectors, also contains a wealth of historical information. It is based on current practice at the British Museum.

Mounting and housing of works of art on paper have always had an important influence on both the survival and the appreciation of the work. Many dangers of a physical, biological and chemical nature await unprotected works of art on paper and specialist mounting provides the primary way of safeguarding them. Also, since the way in which works are presented to the public affects their perception of them, mounting of works of art can contribute significantly to the success or failure of an exhibition. A variety of problems, solutions, past practice and future developments in the mounting, storage and display of artworks on paper are considered in this volume of thirty-one articles presented at a conference at the British Museum*. These include the significance of mounting in the historical study of prints and drawings, the preventive care of paper artifacts, their aesthetic presentation and the management of paper collections. This volume (originally published in 2005) can be considered a companion volume to Conservation Mounting for Prints and Drawings: A Manual Based on Current Practice at the British Museum by Joanna M. Kosek (Archetype Publications 2004). Both volumes are essential tools for the owner, collector, curator, conservator and all professionals who deal with works of art on paper. *Conference entitled: Mounting and Housing Art on Paper for Storage and Display: History, Science and Present-Day Practice.

The prints and drawings of Vincent van Gogh (1853-90) include some of the world's best-known, most popular, and most valuable pieces. This volume is a catalog of van Gogh drawings and prints that are currently under the care of the Kröller-Müller Museum, located near the village of Otterlo in the Netherlands. Catalogued for the first time in 1917, these works have undergone four different editions of the cataloguing process by four different members of the museum staff since World War II alone, and always in the company of van Gogh's more famous paintings. Now, for the first time, the drawings have been studied independently, and the information gathered here presents a remarkably clear overview of the present scholarship and art historical research on the authenticity, dating, provenance, and exhibitions of the work. Differing in many ways from the last collection catalog of van Gogh's drawings and paintings (which was published nearly thirty years ago), this volume not only produces new information on the provenance of certain works, but frequently comes up with a sharper analysis of the techniques and materials used by the artist, as well as new dates for individual drawings. Doubts that have arisen about the authenticity of certain juvenilia by van Gogh are here provided with a well-reasoned foundation, and with the publication of this edition--which complements a 2003 catalog of van Gogh's paintings--a period of intensive research on van Gogh's works in the collection has been brought to a close, culminating in this impeccably researched catalog and its accompanying wealth of full-color images.

To mark the tercentenary of the birth of the eighteenth-century Venetian painter and draughtsman, Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, the National Gallery of Art in Washington has mounted an exhibition of his most outstanding drawings. Well over a hundred drawings and engravings have been brought together from collections around the world. Piazzetta has enjoyed a resurgence of interest among art historians in this century, but most studies have dwelt on his paintings. Professor Knox has provided a model for methods of dealing with Piazzetta problems: his stylistic development, his mannerisms, his working methods, commercial practices of the day and the dating of the drawings. Features that make the catalogue a truly valuable research tool include: the notes on Venetian money, the checklist of paintings and exhibitions discussed, and the essay on Piazzetta's drawings in the Hermitage for Albrizzi's Gerusalemme Liberata.