Survey of Central European Paintings Conservation

FAIN: PG-50452-09

Crocker Art Museum Association (Sacramento, CA 95814-5324)
William Breazeale (Project Director: May 2008 to August 2013)

A conservation survey of 178 paintings that will produce a checklist summarizing the construction, condition, and conservation needs of each. The collection focuses on narrative and genre scenes of the Dresden, Dusseldorf, and Munich schools.

The Crocker's Central European paintings collection will be a centerpiece of the new permanent-collection galleries in an expanded Museum complex. The Balboa Art Conservation Center will do a conservation survey of 178 paintings and provide treatment proposals, with cost estimates, for 10 to 15 determined to be highest priority based on curatorial/conservation needs. With an entire gallery devoted to a major American collection of nineteenth-century Central European art, the collection will become, through public knowledge and curatorial and scholarly study, an international artistic resource. It will fill a gap in the history of American collecting, showing the common concerns of the Crockers and East Coast contemporaries and providing greater understanding of the importance the collection in national history. This grant will aid the Crocker's efforts for collaborative exhibition and publication with other institutions that are strong in this period.