Dioramas are devices on the frontier of different disciplines: art, anthropology, and the natural sciences, to name a few. Their use developed during the nineteenth century, following reforms aimed at reinforcing the educational dimension of museums. While dioramas with human figures are now the subject of healthy criticism and are gradually being dismantled, a thorough study of the work of artists and scientists who made them helps shed light on their genesis. Among other displays, this book examines anthropological dioramas of two North American museums in the early twentieth century: the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and the New York State Museum. Sites of creation and mediation of knowledge, combining painting, sculpture, photography, and material culture, dioramas tell a story that is always political.

This book, written for the non-specialist, offers sound advice on the care and preservation of historic house museums as well as historic houses. It explains how to maintain these structures and their furnishings and suggests practical and inexpensive means of solving problems universal to them.

This publication brings together wide-ranging scientific contributions from the field of plant biology relating to the conservation of cultural heritage and offers fundamental knowledge as well as specific suggestions for practical applications.
Plant Biology for Cultural Heritage presents the work of dozens of scientists who have studied problems presented by the biological degradation of cultural heritage, tackling both general topics (mechanisms of biodeterioration; correlation between biodeterioration and environment; and destructive organisms) and specific ones (problems presented by different materials; various environmental and climatic conditions; and diverse geographic settings). The book also discusses solutions for the prevention and control of deterioration, including appropriate diagnostic techniques.

The nineteen papers in this volume stem from a symposium that brought together academics, archaeologists, museum curators, conservators, and a practicing marble sculptor to discuss varying approaches to restoration of ancient stone sculptures.
Contributors and their subjects include Marion True and Jerry Podany on changing approaches to conservation; Seymour Howard on restoration and the antique model; Nancy H. Ramage's case study on the relationship between a restorer, Vincenzo Pacetti, and his patron, Luciano Bonaparte; Mette Moltesen on de-restoring and re-restoring in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek; Miranda Marvin on the Ludovisi collection; and Andreas Scholl on the history of restoration of ancient sculptures in the Altes Museum in Berlin.
The book also features contributions by Elizabeth Bartman, Brigitte Bourgeois, Jane Fejfer, Angela Gallottini, Sascha Kansteiner, Giovanna Martellotti, Orietta Rossi Pinelli, Peter Rockwell, Edmund Southworth, Samantha Sportun, and Markus Trunk. Charles Rhyne summarizes the themes, approaches, issues, and questions raised by the symposium.

The bestselling adult coloring book that allows you to unleash your own vision onto some of the World's Greatest Masterpieces! From the Art Institute of Chicago's curated collection, Color the Classics lets you put your own creative spin on 30 masterpieces-including Grant Wood's American Gothic and Claude Monet's Water Lilies-that have all taken the art world by storm. Create your own work of art by replicating the classics or add your own creative flair to masterpieces that have been admired for centuries. Featured artists include Pablo Picasso, Georgia O'Keeffe, Katsushika Hokusai, Paul Cezanne, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Georges Seurat, Edward Hopper, Grant Wood, and many more. The perfect gift for any holiday, teachers, or any art lover in your life, this spectacular adult coloring book includes: 30 highly designed, frame ready, masterpieces to color 8"X10" perforated, one sided pages in order to allow for easy tearing and sharing Thick paper prevents marker or pen from bleeding through to the next page Lay-flat trade paper binding Information from the Art Institute of Chicago for each piece, including title, artist, and date A broad range of art featured that span complexity to color Art made accessible enough for children to enjoy too!

The first history of the deaccession of objects from museum collections that defends deaccession as an essential component of museum practice. Museums often stir controversy when they deaccession works-formally remove objects from permanent collections-with some critics accusing them of betraying civic virtue and the public trust. In fact, Martin Gammon argues in Deaccessioning and Its Discontents, deaccession has been an essential component of the museum experiment for centuries. Gammon offers the first critical history of deaccessioning by museums from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century, and exposes the hyperbolic extremes of "deaccession denial"-the assumption that deaccession is always wrong-and "deaccession apology"-when museums justify deaccession by finding some fault in the object-as symptoms of the same misunderstanding of the role of deaccessions in proper museum practice. He chronicles a series of deaccession events in Britain and the United States that range from the disastrous to the beneficial, and proposes a typology of principles to guide future deaccessions. Gammon describes the liquidation of the British Royal Collections after Charles I's execution-when masterworks were used as barter to pay the king's unpaid bills-as establishing a precedent for future deaccessions. He recounts, among other episodes, U.S. Civil War veterans who tried to reclaim their severed limbs from museum displays; the 1972 "Hoving affair," when the Metropolitan Museum of Art sold a number of works to pay for a Velazquez portrait; and Brandeis University's decision (later reversed) to close its Rose Art Museum and sell its entire collection of contemporary art. An appendix provides the first extensive listing of notable deaccessions since the seventeenth century. Gammon ultimately argues that vibrant museums must evolve, embracing change, loss, and reinvention.

This book is the seventh in the Readings in Conservation series, which gathers and publishes texts that have been influential in the development of thinking about the conservation of cultural heritage. The present volume provides a selection of more than ninety-five texts tracing the development of the conservation of works of art on paper. Comprehensive and thorough, the book relates how paper conservation has responded to the changing place of prints and drawings in society. The readings include a remarkable range of historical selections from texts such as Renaissance printmaker Ugo da Carpi's sixteenth-century petition to the Venetian senate on his invention of chiaroscuro, Thomas Churchyard's 1588 essay in verse "A Sparke of Frendship and Warme Goodwill," and Robert Bell's 1773 piece "Observations Relative to the Manufacture of Paper and Printed Books in the Province of Pennsylvania." These are complemented by influential writings by such figures as A. H. Munsell, Walter Benjamin, and Jacques Derrida, along with a generous representation of recent scholarship. Each reading is introduced by short remarks explaining the rationale for its selection and the principal matters covered, and the book is supplemented with a helpful bibliography. This volume is an indispensable tool for museum curators, conservators, and students and teachers of the conservation of works of art on paper.

This book is essential reading for archaeologists working in the field, as well as conservation scientists, museum curators and students of archaeology. The relationship between archaeology and conservation has long been complex and, at times, challenging. Archaeologists are often seen as interested principally in excavation and research, while conservators are concerned mainly with stabilization and the prevention of deterioration. Yet it is often initial conservation in the field that determines the long-term survival and intelligibility of both moveable artefacts and fixed architectural features. This user-friendly guide to conservation practices on archaeological excavations covers both structures and artefacts, starting from the moment when they are uncovered. Individual chapters discuss excavation and conservation, environmental and soil issues, deterioration, identification and condition assessment, detachment and removal, initial cleaning, coverings and shelters, packing, and documentation. There are also eight appendixes. Geared primarily for professionals engaged in the physical practice of excavation, this book will also interest archaeologists, archaeological conservators, site managers, conservation scientists, museum curators, and students of archaeology and conservation.

This is a fascinating re-examination of the importance and legacy of provenance in the history of art. This book goes beyond the narrow definition of the term provenance, which addresses only the bare facts of ownership and transfer, to explore ideas about the origins and itineraries of objects, consider the historical uses of provenance research, and draw attention to the transformative power of ownership. The result is a volume of essays that makes a strong case for recuperating provenance - what contributing author Anne Higonnet calls "so many epic tales compressed into such dry lists" - for the history of art. Provenance attends to the social life of art, a work's biography subsequent to the moment of its origin. "Provenance" offers a broad perspective, ranging from ancient archaeology to conceptual art, that encompasses Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and considers a variety of media. The essays demonstrate in myriad ways how an owner's relationship with a work of art or, in varying degrees, with the object's previous owners can change irrevocably the way the work will be perceived and understood by future generations.

Reviewing the analytical strategies used in the study of cultural heritage assets such as movable artworks and archaeological items, and immovable objects like mural paintings, archaeological sites and historical buildings, this book pays particular attention to analytical methodology. It is not always necessary to use new and sophisticated instrumentation, what is important is how the instruments are used to obtain reliable, reproducible and repetitive results in view of the problems to be solved. The book considers the influence of the environment on the conservation state including degradation and how modern analytical methods have improved the analysis of materials. It emphasizes multi-method approaches on a range of materials, an approach that is of keen interest to those working in conservation practice. Primarily aimed at final year undergraduate study and masters level students, it would also be useful as supplementary reading for postgraduates and academics who require analytical techniques to enhance their research.