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Conservation

Penn Museum’s Conservation Lab is tasked with the long term preservation and conservation of the Museum’s artifact collections.

Working with other Museum staff, our duties include:

  • review, treatment, and setting exhibit parameters for all objects going on exhibit or loan
  • setting travel requirements for all artifacts going on loan or traveling exhibit
  • working with collections staff to provide best possible environment for long term preservation of collections in storage
  • providing conservation consultation for Museum staff, researchers, students, and the general public

Conservation Internship Program
The conservation department has a long and distinguished record of providing valuable internships for conservation students from other universities. Such internships not only provide valuable educational opportunities to young conservators (enabling in-depth treatments for artifacts from our collections), but also fulfill an integral part of all university-based conservation-training programs (providing hands-on, real-life experience to supplement and reinforce academic coursework). This year’s intern, Allison Lewis, a UCLA graduate student, was highlighted in the summer issue of Expedition (vol. 50, no. 2), alongside our Senior Conservator Virginia Greene, who retired on 30 June 2008.

Asian Section Re-housing Project

Interns Wendy Davenport and Allison Richards prepare Japanese scrolls for re-housing. Photo by Lynn Grant Collections care and conservation work at the Penn Museum is ongoing and overseen by the Museum’s Conservation Department. As resources become available, the conditions in which our collections are kept are continually upgraded. For example, before moving the Asian collections into the Mainwaring Wing in 2002, the Museum commissioned a condition survey of its paper-based materials by conservators from the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts (CCAHA) located in Philadelphia.

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Conservation of the Chama Pots

A before and after shot of the conserved Spider Monkey Pot. Penn Museum object NA11443bt1.All of the artifacts in the Painted Metaphors exhibit were examined by the Museum's conservators, and given any treatment necessary to render them stable for exhibition and travel. Treatments varied from simple cleaning to complex disassembly of old restorations; re-mending with modern, stable material; and restoration of missing areas. Exhibits such as this enable the conservators to concentrate on a discreet group of artifacts and, in cooperation with Curators and researchers, make interesting observations about the culture that made and used them.

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Conservation of the Tang Horses

Conservator Julie Lawson has begun cleaning the first of the two reliefs. The lighter area on the left shows where she has removed decades of grime by lightly moistening the surface with steam and blotting off the mobilized dirt with absorbent toweling. Photo by Penn Museum.

The stone reliefs depicting two of the favorite horses of Emperor Taizong (r. 626-649) are among the Museum’s greatest treasures. Recent examinations have shown that the mending, done sometime shortly after the reliefs arrived at the Museum in 1918, is no longer stable. With support from generous donors, Mr. and Mrs. John R. Rockwell (W’64; WG’66), the Museum is undertaking conservation of these important artifacts.

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