Latest Restorations

The Technical Conservation Department attends to the conservation and restoration needs of the cultural assets that make up the MAN's collections. These items date from prehistoric times to the end of the 19th century and belong to a diverse set of types. The range of their constituent materials is also wide, including stone, metal, ceramics, porcelain, bone, natural specimens, glass, polychrome wood, painting on different supports, fabrics, and more.

The work of this department includes preventive conservation, restoration and research

It is essential to have a Preventive Conservation Plan that identifies the risks and agents of deterioration and, consequently, generates the necessary infrastructure and resources to be able to carry out preventive conservation work normally and to act through coordinated,effective strategies to safeguard the collections.

The restoration laboratory's programme establishes its priorities according to objective factors and sets the criteria for intervention, making decisions in agreement with the curators of the collections departments when appropriate. Restoration treatments follow the guidelines of internationally recognised criteria, such as minimum intervention and ensuring the physical, chemical and mechanical stability of the pieces. When necessary, more thorough treatments are carried out, involving different degrees of cleaning or volumetric and chromatic reintegration, all done respecting the original and conserving old restorations, unless they are detrimental to the piece; such a situation is not uncommon in a museum like this one, with more than 150 years of history.

Restoration work is carried out by the Museum's staff of restorers and sometimes by restorers on temporary contracts and trainees from various academic institutions.

This department also manages and carries out analyses of materials, either through external laboratories or with the museum's own equipment.