MITRA Forum Question Details

As employees of the University which hosts this forum and as members of our conservation professional group (AIC), we are precluded from giving treatment recommendations.

We do recognize that there is a difference between doing remedial work on your own artwork and doing so on the artwork of others. The problem is that, since this is online, there is little means to prevent people from using the ideas provided from becoming part of a DIY protocol. Furthermore, it is almost always a bad idea to rely on rote treatment protocol, as every object is different. The only thing that I can do is to recommend that you contact a trained, competent painting conservator. If you woud like me to do so, I can provide some names of conservators in your geographic area.

There are other moderators here that are not bound by the same stringent criteria. Perhaps they would like to comment, although we reserve the right to delete comments that push these boundaries. Please realize that this forum is not intended to be a warehouse for conservation treatment strategies. We respect the specificity of treatment protocol and the professionalization of the art conservation field and will not offer treatment recommendations beyond the most rudimentary and only to remedy small problems in one’s own work.

I realize that this was not your intention and I am sorry if this seems harsh, but it is necessary to maintain the essential professionalism and situation-specific nature of conservation treatments.