18.01.2025

Restorers as exhibition obstructors?

Building design

Dipl.-Rest. Dr. Babette Hartwieg from the Berlin Gemäldegalerie is an advocate for restorers and their skills. In a portrait, she tells RESTAURO what keeps her going in her day-to-day work Babette Hartwieg is passionate about being a conservator – she has been head of the conservation and art technology department at the Berlin Gemäldegalerie since 2005. What keeps her busy above all is […]

Dipl.-Rest. Dr. Babette Hartwieg from the Berlin Gemäldegalerie is an advocate for restorers and their skills. In a portrait, she tells RESTAURO what keeps shaking her up in her day-to-day work

Babette Hartwieg is passionate about being a conservator – she has been head of the Conservation and Art Technology department at the Berlin Gemäldegalerie since 2005. What concerns her most is the fate of her profession, its reputation and the changing job description of conservators. “If I had to summarize what moves me, then I would have to say that it is the exhibition business and the financial difficulties that are causing conservation standards to falter,” says Babette Hartwieg.

Since she became workshop manager at the Gemäldegalerie in 2005, two conservator positions have been cut without replacement. For Babette Hartwieg, this not only means more work, but also a fundamental shift in work tasks: towards administration, away from restoration and also away from research. One could come to terms with the fact that restorers at museums primarily have to perform administrative tasks in order to organize the work on the object, to accompany the museum’s operations and to make picture loans possible. For Babette Hartwieg, this is not enough and is not the sole task of a museum conservator. In her dissertation on the Göttingen Barfüßerretabel, she wrote: “The thesis pursued in this work is that only the systematic art-technological analysis of individual works of art can make an independent contribution to a technical history of the arts.” And she remains adamant: “Research and restoration not only belong together, they cannot exist without each other.”

Lack of public relations work by restorers

She is shocked that the expertise of conservators is simply ignored for financial and political reasons. Time and again, she has found that conservators are not perceived as partners in preserving the collection, but rather as “exhibition obstructors” because they raise concerns. In order to counter such developments, the leading conservators of the major museums in Germany have joined forces to give the conservators’ point of view a voice. For example, in the discussion about softening the climate guidelines in museums. Babette Hartwieg was also involved in the founding of the restoration/conservation working group at the German Museums Association, where she is actively involved as one of the two deputy spokespersons. But will this commitment have any effect? Hartwieg is not sure, but the public’s interest in restoration content confirms that restorers actually need to do a lot more public relations work in order to make a difference.

20.12.2024

Cultural heritage

Piero della Francesca in London: “The Nativity” is once again open to the public

Building design

Now open to the public again: The newly restored painting of the "Nativity" by Piero Della Francesca in the National Gallery London. Photo: © The National Gallery — Now open to the public again: the newly restored painting of the "Nativity" by Piero Della Francesca in the National Gallery London. Photo: © The National Gallery

After three years of restoration, “The Nativity” by Piero Della Francesca is now open to the public again at the National Gallery London

The National Gallery in London recently completed the three-year restoration of Piero della Francesca’s “The Nativity”. At the beginning of December, the National Gallery presented the freshly restored and newly hung and framed painting as its Christmas present to the British.

Christmas present to the British: The newly restored “The Nativity” by Piero della Francesca

The 124.4 x 122.6 centimeter painting, created between 1460 and 1475, is considered to be one of the last that Piero della Francesca painted before he went blind. It was once owned by the family (the Marini Franceschi family from Borgo San Sepolcro, a descendant of Piero della Francesca’s brother Marco). In 1861, it was bought by the Briton Alexander Barker. It was acquired by the National Gallery in 1874. However, the painting was in such poor condition that even the British Parliament inquired whether the work was original or complete. The painting was badly damaged – the faces of the shepherds were as if erased and the colors appeared dull – and the panel support was cracked. The first restoration work was carried out in 1884, followed by further work in the 1950s to repair the loss of colour and stabilize the fragile poplar panel.

The painting has now undergone another 36 months of extensive restoration with the support of the Rothschild Foundation and the London Old Master dealer Fabrizio Moretti. To coincide with the rehanging and reframing of the painting at the beginning of December 2022, the National Gallery published a video about the work, which was led by Jill Dunkerton. The lead conservator kept the interventions to a minimum, but retouched the depiction of the shepherds in part using Piero della Francesco’s precise underdrawings to enhance the overall impression.

You can find out more about the restoration work in the video here:

“Spending the last three years with this beloved painting has been a real privilege, but also a huge responsibility,” explained Jill Dunkerton, the lead conservator, on the occasion of the new presentation. “Every decision, every tiny brushstroke of retouching, affects our perception of the painting’s appearance and meaning, potentially for many generations to come. I hope that visitors can now experience the quiet magic of the painting without the distraction of past damage.”

New framing, new hanging in its own room

The restoration was eagerly discussed in the British press and on Twitter: Art Newspaper / ARTnews). The art critic Jonathan Jones, known for his polemical tone, complained in his column in the Guardian, among other things, that the painting had now been prettied up as if for sale at the London art fair “Frieze. But it’s best to see for yourself: since December 1, “The Nativity” by Piero Della Francesca has been hanging in its own room at the National Gallery, inviting visitors to contemplate it in silence.

We wish all our readers a Merry Christmas and a relaxing holiday season!

29.11.2024

Industry news, Profession

Sharing and discussing digitization experiences

Building design

The annual conference of the German Museums Association is the largest museum conference in Germany. From May 2 to 5, 2021, it will take place online on the topic of “Digital Collection Work: The Changing Museum” It has become a nice habit that the individual working groups also meet during the annual conference of the Museumsbund. Even in this year of the digitally networked […]

The annual conference of the German Museums Association is the largest museum conference in Germany. From May 2 to 5, 2021, it will take place online on the topic of “Digital Collection Work: The Museum in Transition”

It has become a nice habit that the individual working groups also meet during the Museum Association’s annual conference. Even in this year of digitally networked working at home, this has not changed. Only the word “digital” appears more frequently than ever before and the opportunities offered by digitization are being used and discussed particularly intensively. It is therefore hardly surprising that the spring conference of the German Museums Association is being held under the extremely timely heading: “Digital Collection Work: The Museum in Transition” and will be held entirely digitally.

From 2 May 2021, digital experts and museum employees from all over Germany will present their thoughts on museum work in the age of digitalization. Legal issues will be addressed as well as questions of networked research and opportunities to earn money with digital museum offerings. A questioning look at the topic of “Digitality as the ultima ratio in culture?” will conclude the three-day exchange of ideas, which will be followed by the working group meetings on the fourth day of the conference.

The speakers describe the topic of the conservation/restoration working group as follows: “We would like to discuss the benefits and limitations of the digital in conservation and look at the tools currently relevant to our fields of activity.”

In a compact, digital two-hour meeting, four areas in which digital work is possible will be presented. One lecture will deal with the mediation of restoration work using the example of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s “Bathers in Space” in an exhibition at the Saarland Museum. The following lectures will present “Digital tools for conservators in the museum”, “Digital courier support” and a “Handreichung Leihverkehr”. The organizing team does not claim to cover all areas that can work with digital possibilities in these two hours. The aim is to deal with topics “that the pandemic has brought to the fore”, according to the invitation.

Nobody has to miss out on meetings with speakers, networking, discussions and break-time talks during this conference from home. The Museumsbund promises digital services for all these conference-specific options.

Registration for the annual conference of the German Museums Association is possible at https://www.museumsbund.de/aktuelles/jahrestagung/. To take part “only” in the working group conference, you also need to register with the Museumsbund. An invitation to the free TEAMs meeting of the working group will then be sent out.