Restoration and conservation
The Department of Conservation and Restoration’s mission involves safeguarding the museum’s collection so it may be passed on to future generations in the best possible state of conservation, thus allowing compliance with the Museu de Menorca’s very purpose; conservation and dissemination of its collection.
A collection made up of 250,000 cultural assets characterised by their heterogeneity (typological and compositional), considering that, as a historical museum, it houses paintings, sculptures, graphic documents and archaeological and ethnological materials of a different nature (organic and inorganic).
These two courses of action are established for preventive conservation and curative conservation and restoration of the museum’s cultural assets.
Preventive conservation
Preventive conservation can be defined as any on-going measures carried out only on the surroundings of a cultural asset (without direct intervention upon it), so as to avoid or minimise potential risks that may endanger the integrity or stability of the cultural asset, whether found in exhibition halls or in the reserve collection, thus controlling the various possible agents of deterioration (environmental, anthropogenic, etc.).
We therefore carry out a variety of interventions:
- Monitoring of environmental conditions: relative humidity, temperature, lighting.
- Periodic inspection of the state of conservation of cultural assets.
- Design consultation for temporary exhibitions.
- Supervision in the handling and placement of works of art.
- Systematisation of the reserve collection rooms.
- Design and monitoring of support devices for the reserve collection.
- Supervision of the cultural assets taken on loan: analysis of the state of conservation of the cultural asset at the time of arrival at and departure from the museum, and monitoring of the piece while at the museum.
- Supervision of assets on loan: monitoring of environmental conditions of the galleries at the borrowing institution, of packing materials, of their handling and any external movement of the piece. Shipping services, where necessary.
- Plan development: such as the Preventive Conservation Plan and the Safeguarding Plan.
More information:
The Museu de Menorca Safeguarding Plan. Article Boletín GE-IIC. April 2022 (PDF)
Restoration
Restoration implies a direct intervention upon the cultural asset in the event of severe defects, so as to halt and stabilise its state of degradation, and return its legibility (potential unity) according to established international guidelines of:
- Minimal intervention
- Utmost respect for the original
- Use of innocuous materials, without adverse effects to the piece, and reversible
- Use of discernible techniques
The diversity of materials in the Museu de Menorca’s custody requires specific and individualised handling, and thus each piece calls for its own precise intervention processes.
