Saving snapshots of history
Four curators from the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, received lessons in photo conservation during a 10-day visit to Harvard, as part of a $3.4 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to establish a conservation program at the Hermitage. The stakes are high. Russia’s signature museum, founded by Empress Catherine the Great in 1764, houses more than 470,000 aging and vulnerable photographs, some bound in fragile, ornate 19th century albums that belonged to the last czar. From Jan. 20 to Feb. 1, the visitors — already skilled in organic materials, paper, paintings, and other conservation areas — worked with authorities at the Weissman Preservation Center, an arm of the Harvard Library devoted to assessing, treating, and preserving rare photos, paintings, paper artifacts, and other treasures. During hands-on workshops, the Russian conservators studied photo album terminology and structure; digitization technology and work flows; survey methods; surface cleaning techniques; cataloging and...