Preserving Works on Paper at Historic Deerfield

FAIN: PG-280735-21

Historic Deerfield, Inc. (Deerfield, MA 01342-0321)
Amanda Lange (Project Director: January 2021 to November 2023)

A conservation assessment of 350 works of art on paper, including eighteenth-century British portraits, silhouettes, political prints, military and other maps, and other pieces that represent New England life and tastes in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The collections are displayed throughout the Historic Deerfield campus, which includes 55 buildings (including ten historic houses), and are made available to researchers and scholars as well as students of the local Five College Consortium of Amherst College, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, Hampshire College, and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. The project would also include a workshop on object handling and storage best practices that would be open to staff and volunteers of other local museums and historical societies, as well as the development of a rotation schedule for the light-sensitive pieces in the collection.

Historic Deerfield seeks funds for the conservation assessment of 350 framed works of art on paper (prints, drawings, and silhouettes) by two conservators, for their presentation of a workshop in “Matting and Framing Strategies,” and for their review of a rotation schedule for sensitive works on paper in the historic houses. The Condition and Conservation Treatment Needs Survey will be conducted by the conservators using a digital survey tool designed to work seamlessly with the museum’s collections management database. In addition, they will conduct a workshop in best practices for storage, handling, and display of works on paper. The workshop will be open to local museum and historical society employees and volunteers. A rotation schedule for light sensitive works on paper will be developed by the Department Director and the Collections Manager in consultation with the paper conservators.