Conservation History

The Conservation Department at the Peabody Museum

^{by T. Rose Holdcraft, Senior Conservator.}

The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology was established in 1866 as a research and teaching institute.

Today the Museum has an integrated program of exhibition and interpretation, research and teaching, and collections management and conservation. The conservation department was established at the Peabody around 1970 with the first full-time conservation position created in 1973. Since then, conservation services and training have contributed significantly to the care, accessibility, and technical understanding of collections held at the Museum.

Museum conservation is dedicated to the long-term preservation of artistic, historic, and cultural materials and is constantly evolving. The Peabody’s history of conservation reflects how we value and preserve our past, how we come to recognize preservation, exhibition and teaching risks, and how sound conservation interventions can be developed. As the Peabody Museum acknowledges prior limitations of source community members’ participation in museum conservation practice and in the care of their cultural heritage, an orientation of resources and efforts towards a more inclusive future is essential.

^{Fig. 1. Dennis Piechota, conservator, in 1977, gathering data on Andean archaeological textiles in preparation for a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant proposal.}

The field of conservation had its beginnings in preservation and restoration efforts dating back centuries, when specialists’ focus was largely on painted surfaces, paper, metal, and stone items, as well as architectural structures. During the nineteenth century, archaeological expeditions uncovered numerous remnants of human-made objects which often found their way into early museums. These objects included ceramic vessels, metal-alloy tools, plant-based textiles and cordage, and wood carvings, which tend to be fragile and unstable. Moreover, the excavation process and transport to museums, sometimes added to structural and surface losses to the cultural material. It became imperative to develop methods to prevent physical damage, and to create new strategies for their preservation.

^{Fig. 2. One of several exhibit rooms in the Museum, 1893.}

In the Peabody Museum’s first decades, curator-professors and students created open-study exhibits to display archaeological and historic cultural items. Staff sought safe ways to exhibit collections in secure display cases. Often, they employed structural supports, but sometimes drilled holes or used intractable adhesives to display objects. To address vulnerable organic materials, such as feather, fur, and wool-based items, museum staff employed available pest prevention and mitigation techniques.

In the first half of the twentieth century, several museums began to establish in-house facilities to support conservation and scientific initiatives. Conservation principles and strategies were developed and debated through national and international exchanges. Academic art conservation training programs developed; the first U.S. program began in 1960.

^{Fig. 3. One of the many storage rooms in the Museum as seen prior to 1978.}

In the mid-1970s, a building-wide monitoring program at the Peabody, implemented under the Museum’s first professional conservator Dennis Piechota, resulted in the identification of risks to collections and their accessibility challenges. Museum curators and conservator planned together and reoriented the Museum towards the importance of collections storage conditions. The Museum initiated a large-scale renovation of its historic late-nineteenth century building in 1978 to improve collections accessibility, storage, and security.

^{Fig. 4. Conservators aligning an oversized paper document in the basement conservation lab in 1980.}

^{Fig. 5. Basement conservation lab in 1982.}

^{Fig. 6.  Ron Harvey and Nancy Odegaard, assistant conservators, working in the basement conservation lab on the NSF-funded Native North American basket conservation project, Spring 1982.}

In support of the Museum’s major building upgrade effort, curatorial and conservation staff collaborated on successful grant-funded projects to support the installation of new storage shelving and cabinetry systems, as well as to improve documentation and preservation of large at-risk collections, such as Andean archaeological textiles (1978-81) and Native North American historic baskets (1981-84).

^{Fig. 7. Sixth-floor conservation lab under construction in 1982.}

^{Fig. 8. Conservators working in the new sixth floor conservation lab, Summer 1983.}

The building renovation with advisement from conservation included construction of a new conservation laboratory on the sixth floor with proper ventilation, fume extraction, and basic analytical equipment. Today, conservation staff continue to contribute to Museum planning processes by approving engineering and materials specifications and in consulting on emergency preparedness measures.

^{Fig. 9. The 1980 removal of a large Maya plaster cast monument from its third floor display for a travelling loan exhibit under the Museum’s new collections-sharing program.}

^{Fig. 10.  Loan items crated and being loaded into truck to borrowing institution, 1981}

Sharing Collections

Sharing collections has been foundational to the Peabody Museum. During the building renovation, many of the largest exhibit galleries were temporarily closed, rendering the collections largely inaccessible to the public. A ‘collections-sharing’ program (1979-84) was uniquely designed that took many traveling loans of objects from the Museum to venues across the country. Several conservators were hired to support this innovative loan program as well as to oversee the collections’ relocation to renovated storage.

^{Fig.11.  Interior packing of small-sized gold items in a hand-carry container.}

^{Fig. 12.  Interior of the hand-carry container with packed items for loan.}

^{Fig. 13. Hand-carry container for safe transport of small items to loan venue.}

With storage rooms upgraded, in the late 1980s, Peabody conservators turned to consult on renovations of Museum gallery spaces for both longer-term exhibitions and shorter-term/rotating displays. The Museum today continues to share collection items approved for exhibition, loan, and research at university, national and international locations. Conservation staff actively collaborate with registrars, curators, indigenous consultants, exhibit, and collections staff in the implementation of in-house exhibitions and loan projects.

^{Fig. 14. Members of the planning team for the Native North American gallery renovation (James Gilmore, assistant designer/mount maker, Scott Fulton, assistant conservator, T. Rose Holdcraft, associate conservator, Richard Renshaw-Beauchamp, chief conservator with Richard Riccio, exhibit designer), Fall 1988.}

^{Fig. 15. Curator Lisa Bernasek with assistant conservator Esther Chao and exhibit mount-maker Suzanne Sroka-Burton in the conservation lab discussing a Berber cape to be featured in the 2004 “Imazighen! Beauty and Artisanship in Berber Life” exhibit.}

Preserving Through A Phased Approach

Conservation practice involves dual roles: preventive actions and interventive treatment work. Preventive conservation measures, as a strategic approach to preservation, include integrated pest management, environmental monitoring for temperature, relative humidity, light and pollutants, in addition to proper storage systems and housings for collection items. Phased conservation intervention is a sound preservation strategy for addressing large holdings of similar materials or types of items. In prior decades, collections may have arrived at or been stored at the Museum in a state that inhibited their full use and understanding. Employing basic collections care and preventive measures for a specific type of collection, followed later by individual conservation interventive treatments as needed, ensures the broadest general stability and access to collections.

^{Fig. 16.  Storage of bark cloth in wood trays and wood cabinetry before 1984.}

^{Fig. 17. Interim storage (1984 to 1998) in new renovated storage room on foam-lined metal shelves.}

^{Fig. 18. Bark cloth items as rehoused in storage in 1999. Before the 1980s, the large holding of bark cloth items from the Pacific Islands were primarily folded and stored in wood cabinetry.}

These cloths remained folded when they were moved into improved conditions in newly renovated storage. To address the deleterious effects of folded storage and to respond to increasing research requests for access to and use of the bark cloths, the lead conservator secured funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to improve their individual care. As a result, in 1997-99, project conservation staff was hired to condition assess each cloth, lightly surface-clean, humidify, unfold, repair, and rehouse the bark cloth items for enhanced physical accessibility. Now, University students, researchers, and Pacific Islanders can view and learn about these items more easily and safely.

^{Fig. 19. Monika Jankowiak, 2001 summer master’s level conservation intern, realigns and stabilizes a tear on a Niue bark cloth garment.}

^{Fig. 20.  An archival-grade folder with a cleaned and conserved Hawaiian kapa cloth fragment in 2000.}

A phased preservation approach applies to other large collections in the Peabody’s archives such as the nearly 7,000 maps and oversized paper-based archaeological drawings. With IMLS funding in 2009, conservation condition surveyed the items to identify priority issues, implemented minimal cleaning and/or repair, organized them in archival-quality boxes, and relocated the collection to an upgraded storage environment in new cabinetry. Hundreds of thousands of black and white photographic collections were likewise condition assessed, rehoused and moved to a specially designed air-filtered and temperature-controlled cool room under support of an NSF grant in 1995-97.

^{Fig. 21.  Photographic archives office and storage room prior to 1995.}

^{Fig. 22. New environmentally-controlled photographic archives storage room in 1997.}

Much interventive work and investigation, of course, remains to be done. For many of the environmental improvement projects, technical investigations, and priority collection conservation efforts initiated by the conservation department, critical support has been realized through several external sources (IMLS, NSF, Getty Grant Program, Samuel H. Kress Foundation, National Center for Preservation Training and Technology, National Endowment for the Humanities, and several others). These funding programs have been essential to furthering preservation and understanding of collections and in supporting the training of conservation professionals.

^{Fig. 23. Summer 2010 Harvard interns Allison (Meadows) McLaughlin and Tia Ray in the conservation lab learning about the Oddy test.}

Communicating Conservation Ideas and Methods

As part of the University’s mission of teaching and research, the conservation department has played an important role in providing educational opportunities for University students as well as those from graduate-level art conservation training programs in the US, Canada, and Europe. To date, the conservation department has hosted more than 40 conservation interns and fellows affiliated with master’s degree academic programs and about 80 pre-program conservation interns, Harvard College undergraduate student interns, and work-study students from local universities. The department is especially grateful for generous internship funding from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.

^{Fig. 24. Laure Manchiline, 2011 intern from the master’s degree conservation program at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, examines condition issues of bark-based items.}

Conservation staff work closely with the Museum’s academic partnerships department and collections research unit, sharing conservation knowledge with increasing numbers of University faculty, students, and external researchers. Conservators are involved in Harvard University anthropology and extension school courses, providing guest lectures, hands-on workshops, and student advisement on object-based research projects. The participation of conservation staff in digital resources, such as on-line exhibitions, publications, and presentations, further supports University and external communities’ engagement with the collections and their stewardship at the Museum.

^{Fig. 25. Robin O’Hern, 2009 pre-program conservation intern, conserving a ceramic bowl.}

^{Fig. 26. Fran Ritchie, master’s degree conservation intern in 2013, humidifying a gutskin parka from Alaska as part of a collaborative conservation project with Alutiiq experts.}

Since the 1980s, museum practice has incorporated computerization and, in the past twenty years, the digitization of object condition and conservation treatment documents has contributed to increased accessibility to the Museum’s preservation and conservation history. The use of electronic systems, facilitates conservation processes for collections preservation such as in tracking and interpreting environmental data more consistently and securely. An expanding peer-reviewed conservation literature supports the profession in myriad ways: in sharing new analytical techniques, in debating conservation treatment strategies, and in challenging past conservation practices.

^{Fig. 27. Judy Jungels, Peabody Museum conservator, sharing repair techniques for gutskin with Alutiiq consultants and other colleagues at an exchange workshop in Kodiak, AK at the Alutiiq Museum in 2015.}

Shaping a More Just Future

The humanistic and social dimensions of conservation and museum practice have been increasingly recognized in recent years. Responsible care of the cultural resources housed in museums involves sharing perspectives and authority with cultural caretakers and knowledge holders. Aspects of this more inclusive and equitable approach have been realized to date through specific intentional projects, for example, in a co-curated exhibit, in co-stewardship of selected cultural items, and in a collaborative study and conservation project with cultural experts. Museums and their conservation units are at a crossroad in how they care for cultural items, reorienting from a single institution-focused perspective to a more inclusive, multi-vocal one. Responsible museum preservation of cultural holdings is actively stretching and developing new strategies in listening and in engaging collaboratively in transforming next steps. As we move forward, we consider these questions:  what is preserved, how is it preserved, and whose input about preservation questions is heard and when? how can collaborative study and technical analyses be shaped and conducted? by what means can cultural input be facilitated for needed preservation interventions? by what means can the museum best share knowledge acquired through conservation activities with interested communities? what might be best practices for achieving a path to more consistent and sustained dialogues? how can we engage more closely with indigenous consultants and cultural stakeholders? The profession of conservation concerns more than care for the physical aspects of objects; its practice must be informed by and aligned with intentional efforts and active voices fostering greater inclusion. 

Acknowledgements  

The most sincere gratitude and appreciation is extended to Dennis Piechota, for sharing his extensive experiences and knowledge of early challenges at the Museum and in his foresight in shaping a conservation department at the Museum. I owe likewise significant gratitude to Viva Fisher, prior senior registrar at the Peabody Museum, for her careful and thoughtful editorial support for this webpage, and to Ilisa Barbash, museum curator, for her additional insights and review.

References Consulted

Primary sources consulted are those in the Peabody Museum Conservation Department files (i.e. conservation annual reports, conservation-related grant projects, annual and 5-year conservation planning documents, conservators’ notes and reports on loans and in-house exhibits); as well as personal communications with several prior Peabody conservators, especially Dennis Piechota (1970-78) and Nancy Odegaard (1981-83). Other references included the Peabody Museum and Department of Anthropology newsletter; Peabody Museum newsletter Symbols; museum annual reports; and Curtis M. Hinsley’s article “The Museum Origins of Harvard Anthropology 1866-1915” in Science at Harvard University: historical perspectives edited by C. A. Elliott and M. W. Rossiter, 1992. See additional information under Staff Publications.

Further notes for a history of conservation.

Conservation practice intersects with markers of museum practice, developing collections management and registration methods, evolving archaeological approaches, increasing availability of imaging and other analytical techniques, enriching digital resources, and prioritizing collaborations with cultural knowledge-bearers and caretakers. The history of the Peabody Museum preservation and conservation services can be interpreted from diverse perspectives, with a limited selection of activities noted below. Gratitude is extended to the many conservators and conservation interns who have contributed in notable ways to the record over the last fifty years.

Text in brackets [  ] indicate developments within the national and international conservation profession.

1866

Peabody Museum is established as a research institute/museum with endowment funds from George Peabody.

1870s

First known use of arsenic to address pest issues affecting organic-based collections in the Peabody Museum.

[1888  The first chemist (Friedrich Rathgen) is hired at the laboratory of the Royal Museums of Berlin.]

1890s

Peabody Museum curator and director, Frederic Ward Putnam, directs the anthropology display at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Putnam, called the “Father of American Archaeology,” was involved in many archaeological initiatives.

1900-20s

Peabody curators restore objects at field sites and at the museum, including fragile cut mica sheets from the mounds in the Ohio Valley. Early interventions included preservation of organic materials from underwater archaeological sites.

[1920s  British Museum research lab is established to respond to collection condition concerns.]

[1928  Harvard University Fogg Art Museum’s technical studies dept established.]

[1930  International conference on study of scientific methods of art in Rome impacts future founding of the International Institute for Conservation (IIC); several new conservation training programs are established. Museum of Fine Arts-Boston conservation lab was established.]

1931-58

Peabody Museum preparator, Frederick P. Orchard, focuses on object photography, restoration work, exhibit installations, and exhibit case maintenance.

1935-40s

On Peabody expeditions to the Southwest, excavated ceramics are restored in the field with ‘airplane glue.’ At-risk metals are examined at the Fogg Art Museum’s technical studies department. Gold alloy items from Panama are affixed with adhesive to cellulose-nitrate sheets. Late 1930s, research fellow Isabel Guernsey analyzes fragile archaeological textile fragments, and places them between glass sheets for preservation.

[1946  International Council of Museums is organized.]

1950-60

New exhibits are installed. Maintenance of organic collections at the Peabody Museum continues with naphthalene and other chemicals.

[1952  First issue of “Studies in Conservation” is published.]

[1956: H. Plenderleith’s book “Conservation of Antiquities and Works of Art was published.]

1958-70

Preparator Arsen Charles is hired and serves until 1970. Charles maintains exhibits; focuses on Mecklenburg collection of Iron Age bronzes; and works with the Museum’s Bushnell collection of paintings. Through Charles, collaborations are established with the MFA-Boston (Bill Young), the Fogg Museum (Betty Jones), and MIT (Cyril Smith).

[1960  First U.S. master’s level academic program in art conservation at Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. First regular meeting of the IIC-American Group (later in 1973 known as AIC- American Institute for Conservation.)]

[1968  First code of ethics and standards of practice- IIC-American Group.]

1970

Dennis Piechota is hired as preparator and becomes first conservator in 1973. Piechota is responsible for ongoing loan and in-house exhibit maintenance and object treatments for new installations. In summer 1973, new equipment is secured for the basement lab and a building-wide collections monitoring program starts.

1974

Installation of ‘Tlingit Aanee: Enter the Tlingit World’ exhibition with principal advisor Rosita Worl, Tlingit of Shangoo-keidee clan of Chilkat-Tlingit, and Nathan Jackson, Tlingit master wood carver, featuring Tlingit items in their cultural context.

1974-75

Andean/Peruvian archaeological textile catalog project is initiated under curator Steve Csipke.

Conservation assistant, Angela Lakwete, assumes temporary oversight of the Peabody conservation lab. Lakwete investigates hide cleaning methods, silk ribbon consolidation, and flaking paint on plaster casts.

Native Muskhogean Creek wood carver and Peabody artist-in-residence, Joseph Johns/Cayoni, assists in restoration and installation of the monumental wood-carved Kwakwaka’wakw Thunderbird and whale house post in the newly constructed Tozzer Library.

[1975: ICCROM training course ‘Preventive Conservation in Museums.]

1976

Conservation lab involved with mold remediation strategies for affected material; and with basket cleaning techniques.

1977

Autumn: With National Science Foundation (NSF) funding, archivist Daniel Jones oversees design and installation of Harvard's first color film cold storage vault and development of a research and storage room for photographic collections. Conservation develops a set of housing prototypes for Andean archaeological textiles. Winter. Piechota with G. Conrad, curator, submit NSF grant for Andean archaeological textile collection. Piechota later writes 1978 JAIC article on the pilot project for archaeological textile rehousing methods.

1978

NSF-funded (1978-81) Andean archaeological textile documentation, conservation, and rehousing project is implemented by Jill Mefford with several student interns and volunteers. Ingrid Reindell assists with implementation of “Masterpieces of the Peabody Museum, Harvard University” exhibition. Planning for a major storage renovation of the building begins.

1979

Conservator Alex Allardt is hired. National Endowment for the Humanities funded Collection-Sharing Program starts, resulting in numerous travelling exhibitions cooperatively organized with nine other museums.

[1978: Garry Thomson’s book “Museum Environment” was published.}

[1979  Photographic materials group of the AIC is formed.]

1980-81

Textile arts specialist Joanne Segal Brandford works with conservator, student interns and volunteers on basketry and textile collections; prepare exhibit on Native North American baskets. An Institute of Museum Services (IMS) grant supports transfer of nitrate photographic film to safety film. Summer: The Bushnell Collection of paintings is condition surveyed with assistance of conservation intern Catherine Metzger. Several Hemenway Expedition maps are conserved.

1980-82

Linda Merk, conservator and Greta Hanson, associate conservator, are hired. Collaboratively-organized loans are prepared under the Collection-Sharing Program, including with the Children’s Museum, Boston Museum of Science, and the Science Museum of Minnesota. Conservation staff and interns included Kent Severson, Valerie Free, and Sharon Blank and several others. Ethnographic Storage Renovation (ESR) project gets underway with quantification of object density to estimate storage space needs. Exhibit galleries close and serve as temporary storage for objects removed from older storage areas undergoing renovation. Annex facility building is identified as a future storage site for inorganic collections. Contract art handlers start to pack up inorganic collections.

1981-84           

NSF-funded Native North American basket conservation project is undertaken with hires of assistant conservators Nancy Odegaard and Ron Harvey. Several interns and post-graduate fellows assist on the project including Dale Kronkright and Rika Smith (McNally). Melissa Banta contributes to early computer cataloguing. Banta, later serves as Director of the Photographic Archives, involved in preservation efforts, creating exhibits and publications of the museum’s extensive photographic holdings.

1982

Sept: Assistant conservator Steve Mellor is hired for the building renovation project, and for object treatments for ongoing loans, and for ‘The Andean Heritage: Masterpieces of Peruvian Art” exhibition.

1983

Spring: The new sixth floor conservation lab opens. Collections are relocated to newly renovated storage rooms. Use of computerized databases begins.

Assistant conservator Malinda Blustain is hired for NSF-funded basket conservation project.

Assistant conservator Marilyn Lenz is hired for Collection-Sharing Program, including the 1984 loan exhibit “Cenote of Sacrifice: Maya Treasures from the Sacred Well at Chichen Itza” involving 300 objects.

1984-85

Madeleine Fang, a prior summer conservation intern is hired as assistant conservator for the NSF basket conservation project, and later as conservator (March 1985-July 1987). Former conservation intern Barbara Mangum is hired as assistant conservator (October 1985-October 1986).

 

[1985: ICCROM’s PREMA (Prevention in Museums in Africa) program starts.]

 

1986

Peabody conservation collaborates with Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI) on a pigment study of Native North American painted skin robes; and collaborates with MFA-Boston and CCI on a glass bead deterioration study involving Native North American beaded objects.

1987

First IPM policy and guidelines are developed in consultation with University entomologist. Environmental monitoring (light; pests; temperature, relative humidity) efforts are expanded. Planning grant is received for renovation of the first-floor exhibit gallery (Heafitz Hall of the North America Indian ‘Change and Continuity’ installation) with Native American consultants. Harvard graduate John Merkel undertakes conservation survey of Mecklenburg Collection of Iron Age bronzes, Slovenia. Richard Renshaw-Beauchamp, chief conservator, is hired to oversee conservation services for the new Heafitz Hall and for ongoing loans.

1988-90

Scott Fulton is hired as assistant conservator for object treatments for Heafitz Hall; he will later become conservator focusing on inorganic objects (ceramic, plaster, and metals) and assisting with in-house and loan projects. Contract conservators Dennis Piechota; and Jo Hill are hired to support object treatments for the Heafitz Hall. Associate conservator T. Rose Holdcraft is hired to focus on Pacific barkcloth, on Andean textile treatments and rehousing, and for textile object mounting for the Heafitz Hall; she will later become conservator and later senior conservator, with oversight of grant proposal development, conservation intern supervision, object and textile implementation and lab administration.

[1989/1994 Formation of APOYO/APOYOnline -Association for Heritage Preservation of the Americas]

IMS funding supports a Museum-wide heating-ventilation-air conditioning survey and collection-level conservation condition surveys, and with recommendations from external architectural, engineering, and conservation specialists, the conservation department produced its first long-range preservation/conservation plan, balancing preservation needs with the Museum’s programmatic goals.

[1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) enacted.]

1991-99

Museum receives IMS-funding to transfer unstable photographic film to safety film. Object treatments for in-house exhibits and loan program continue. Collaborate with CCI in use of parylene gas phase polymer technology in consolidation of highly fracturing feathers and for slitting silk. With support of Samuel H Kress funding (1992-2002), conservation internship training program for annual summer and full year interns is developed.

1994-95

Museum receives a conservation- initiated IMS grant for reorganization, rehousing and new cabinetry for the large holding of paper-based accession files and primary documents. Department collaborates with the Harvard UNiversity Library Conservation unit to reformat the Museum’s original catalogue ledger books to preservation copy facsimiles for staff/research active use and rehouses  and relocates to originals to Archives storage.

1995-97

Conservation and Archives departments implement NSF-funded project for design and installation of a black/white photographic cool storage vault and partial rehousing of collections; oversight by Conservation Department produces a long-range preservation plan for photographic collections. In consultation with Harvard University Library the museum reformats the late-nineteenth century Directors’ letter books to support NAGPRA initiatives.

1996

Museum receives IMS-funding to expand storage system for North and Central American archaeological ceramics. Conservation advises on new cabinetry and shelving storage system for osteological collections. Conservation undertakes treatment and rehousing of more than 100 late-nineteenth century shellac-coated paper molds used in making plaster replicas of Maya stone monuments.

1997-99

Kathleen Kiefer, assistant conservator, is hired to assist with implementation of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant for treatment and rehousing of 250 Polynesian bark cloth items. The project is undertaken in consultation with Hawai’i’s 1991 Living Treasure Puanani Kanemura Van Dorpe, external museum curator Adrienne Kaeppler, and university visiting professors. Department collaborates with MFA-Boston analytical lab on a seminal study of a selected group of actively degrading Samoan paper-mulberry barkcloth.

1999

Conservation oversees Getty Foundation grant for detailed conservation surveys of 1300 works of art on paper, 200 paintings and 50 gilt frames, with the hire of three contract conservators. Conservation projects with several Harvard University Native American Program undergraduate and graduate students (1990s-2010) are supervised.

2000-01

Museum receives conservation-initiated IMLS funding for treatment and rehousing of 350 West and Central African at-risk wood, plant-based and ivory items. Project assistant conservator Rachael Arenstein is hired to implement treatments and provide material analysis. Suzanne Sroka, collections assistant, rehouses the conserved items. Conservation-focused exhibition ‘Embedded Nature: Tapa Cloths of the Pacific Islands’ is curated.

 

2002-03

Museum receives conservation-initiated IMLS funding for treatment and rehousing of hundreds of Central American metal collections. Project assistant conservator Sylvia Keochakian is hired to implement treatments. Assistant conservator Esther Chao is hired to support in-house exhibitions and loan projects. Conservation coordinates collection storage assessment discussions with collection assistants and curators for long-range preservation planning.

2004-06

Conservation staff conduct technical and material analysis in collaboration with curator and external consultants and implement treatments for nineteenth-century objects featured in ‘From Nation to Nation: Examining Lewis and Clark’s Indian Collection.’ Conservators continue to contribute to numerous loan and in-house exhibitions involving hundreds of items annually. Successful continued expansion of the museum’s environmental monitoring program.

2007-10

Assistant conservator Judy Jungels is hired; she later becomes conservator. Jungels supports several ongoing loans and in-house exhibits; and focuses on treatment of nineteenth-century plaster casts (facsimiles of sculptural art and hieroglyphic writing from stone monuments and buildings at Mesoamerican archaeological sites). Project assistant conservators Christie Pohl and Diana Medellin are hired to conserve high-priority Mesoamerican plaster casts. From 2007-09, conservators implement collection-level surveys with Weissman photograph conservation staff and interns; and on at-risk photographic conservation treatment projects including the Museum’s daguerreotype collection.

2009-11

Conservation and Archives staff implement the IMLS grant for treatment and rehousing of nearly 7,000 oversized maps, and architectural and archaeological documents. Conservation assistant Meg Rampton is hired to catalogue, document, clean and rehouse oversized paper documents with conservator and senior archivist. Conservation treatments are ongoing for lobby cases, teaching displays, and rotating short-term exhibits.

2011-14

Museum receives IMLS-funded Save America’s Treasures grant for the collaborative study and conservation of Native Alaskan kayaks and kayak-related collections with support of Alutiiq consultants (2011-13). In conjunction with the conservation department, Daniel P. Kirby, conservation scientist implements the National Center for Preservation Training and Technology grant for research into application of peptide mass fingerprinting to further support the Alutiiq collaboration and to expand reference database for wider museum use. Project conservation assistant Ellen Promise is hired (2012 -13) and research assistant Madeline Corona is hired (2013-14). Conservation supports a new installation ‘The Legacy of Penobscot Canoes: A View from the River,’ on birchbark canoe technology, involving collaborative study and treatment with indigenous consultation.

2014-16

The long-standing  Pacific Island gallery is deinstalled in advance of a new installation ‘All the World Is Here’ featuring 600 items from the Americas, Asia, and the Pacific Islands. Conservation staff with assistant conservator LeeAnn Barnes Gordon and several part-time assistants conduct object treatments and mount fabrications for the exhibit. In 2016, a Ross Merrill Award for Outstanding Commitment to the Preservation and Care of Collections is awarded to Harvard University, based on the long tradition of successful preservation work at Harvard Library, the Harvard Art Museums and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Special projects associate conservator Cristina Morilla surveys the museum’s paintings collection and undertakes treatment of several at-risk paintings.

 

2017

Associate conservator Morgan Nau is hired in January 2017 for building-wide IPM coordination, treatment of archaeological ceramics, publication photography requests and support for loan projects. Assistant conservator Cassy Cutulle is hired for cleaning, treatment and rehousing of items in the Native North American collection storage room after moth outbreak; she serves as supervisor for staff assistants on the project. Through to end of 2019, conservation staff implement object treatments and provide packing and courier support for several major loan projects.

2019 – present

Conservator undertakes treatments of Colombian objects for publication photography. Conservation department provides treatment, mount fabrication, and installation of ‘Many Mexicos’ exhibition objects. Onsite work includes IPM monitoring, object treatments for exhibit rotation, University-related loan projects, conservation of numerous at-risk items, contributions to the Museum’s ethical stewardship initiative and consultation and support to the Peabody Museum’s research unit, Archives, NAGPRA, Registration, and Osteology/Paleoanthropology departments.