How are museum objects cared for and preserved?
The Museum has a full-time staff of conservators who are in charge of the condition of objects in the collection. Conservators routinely examine potential purchases and gifts prior to acquisition to ascertain the condition of objects. If an object is deemed too fragile or overly repaired, for example, the decision may be not to acquire it. Some objects change over time and require treatment. Silver, for example, will tarnish and must be periodically polished to show at its best. Conservation decisions require balanced judgments regarding the appropriate level of treatment. Some objects traditionally are presented with a higher level of conservation than others. French eighteenth-century furniture, for example, is almost always more highly conserved than American furniture of the same period. A basic tenet of conservation treatments is that they should be reversible so that future generations will have the option to make a change if new information about the appearance of the object is
