Preserving the Past

For most museum-goers, art is something to look at from a distance. Paintings hang under glass, sculptures stand set off by ropes, and all around hang signs that say "Do not touch."

But there is a small group at Harvard whose job it is to disobey these signs. They weigh the permanence of a fifth-century Greek vase in their hands, or they dust off the skirt of a Degas dancer's dress. They are the men and women who work on the top two floors of the Fogg Art Museum, at the Center for Conservation and Technical Studies.

"I suppose we all enjoy the objects, and we really want to touch them. So this is how we do it," says Barbara Mangum, one of the six interns receiving advanced training in art conservation at the Center. Lying on the table in front of Mangum are two seventh century B.C. bronze Chinese vases, a cluster of Babylonian cuneiform tablets soaking in a beaker of water, and a coffee-table sized Egyptian mummy. The mummy, Mangum says, is not cursed.

The Center was established in 1928 by then-Fogg director Edward W. Forbes, as the museum's conservation department. Since then, the Center has expanded to become a national, non-profit cooperative. Each year, museums and private collectors throughout the country send more than 500 art works to the museum. The Center staff works to repair and clean works, and often checks the pieces for authenticity.

Much of the center's work entails extensive research into the various artworks. Often pieces have been altered several times, and workers must carefully examine the works to reveal these changes. Center Director Arthur Beale likens the research to looking at a car: "If the car has been repaired and has plastic fenders," he says, "we like to know when they were put there and why."

Often, a previous alteration may be of historical import itself, Beale says. "Then the question is whether to leave it as it is or return it to the original," he adds.

This kind of delicate research requires an extensive array of specialized equipment. The four laboratories that house the Center for Conservation are filled with elaborate scientific machinery for work through microscopy, X-ray defraction and thermoluminescence.

The Center's workers make the greatest use of this equipment in the difficult process of checking on the authenticity of works. "The principal means of dating and authentication are inferential," says Beale. "We know what a work should be made of if it is from a certain time and area," he adds.

For example, if someone were to bring in a painting believed to be by Da Vinci, the Center's specialists would scratch off a sample of paint invisible to the naked eye. Workers then would examine the paint under a scanning electronic microscope in the astrophysics lab. ("It was bought for the moonrocks," Beale says, "but I don't think they use it much for that.") If the pigments and compounds used in the would-be Da Vinci do not match those from specimens that the master actually used, the painting is probably a fake.

Another piece of equipment of great use to the Center's researchers is the X-ray machine. Several years ago petroleum magnate Armand Hammer sent a Rembrandt entitled "Juno" to be inspected. The painting depicts the wife of Zeus holding a staff. X-ray surprisingly revealed that Rembrandt originally painted Juno empty-handed and with her arms down.

The Center performed a similar investigation about 10 years ago, when Van Gogh's "Shoes" was on display at the Fogg. In the laboratory upstairs, researchers found that a vase of flowers had been painted under the surface of the work.

More impressive than the modern equipment used in such processes, through, is the collection of pigments stored in cases and drawers lining the halls of the center. These thousands of pigments--originally collected by Forbes--have been used by artisans of every civilization from the Mayans to Michelangelo.

Marjorie B. Cohn, who works as a conservator of works on paper; explains that many of these pigments have not been produced for hundreds of years. One of these is what Cohn calls the "Mummy" Pigment--a murky brown color that 19th century English painters produced by grinding up the bones and wrapplings of Egyptian mummies.

Another rare pigment is a brilliant yellow derived from the urine of Indian cows fed large quantities of mango leaves When they realized that the mango leaf diet was killing the cows, the British-- in a move typical of imperial altruism--banned the production of "Indian Yellow." The big chunk of it in the Center's collection is one of the only surviving samples.

Aside from the glamor of conservation and the excitement of unique discoveries, the Center's specialists must often do the more tedious and undesirable work of cleaning pieces of art. Paintings often become infested with worms, beetles, and other pests. Lab workers recently removed an 11th century Chinese polychrome wood statue from exhibition at the Fogg for the first time since 1928. They had to fumigate the piece in a special lab to rid it of powder-post beetles.

Though insect infestation might be expected in works of art that sit in storage for several years, the Center's specialists sometimes find more unusual objects. Recently, researchers found a corn plant growing out of the back of a painting by Thomas Jones, an 18th century English artist. "They found that painting in an attic that had been used for feeding hens," says Mary McGrath, an intern in the painting lab. "The seeds had settled in on it and sprouted," she adds.

Surprisingly, it is 20th century works that pose the greatest problems in conservation. The poor composition of modern pigments has reduced light-fastedness and made colors impermanent. Many modern paintings require a great deal of work, because, Cohn says, artists lack an understanding of the materials they work with.

Cohn recalls that one artist called her and said she loved to paint on brown paper bags. "Don't do it," Cohn told the caller. "Nobody's going to appreciate you in a hundred years."