There’s a natural tension between museum curators, whose main goal is to display works of art, and conservators, whose job it is to guard them from the ravages of time or physical damage. Add to the mix, cash-strapped museum directors and funding organizations, and you’ve got the perfect opportunity for inventiveness. Enter MoLab, appropriate name for a hard-traveling team of art conservators on wheels, armed with an arsenal of high tech gear in a van. Sponsored by the European Commission, its far better equipped than the cash-starved museums it serves. On board is: an atomic-force microscope, a micro-Raman spectroscope, a nuclear magnetic resonance relaxometer, just as a sample. While the team doesn’t do the preservation work itself, it does generate scientifically sound data for the conservators to use in their work. Knowing what sort of resin was used, or which pigments are in a medieval manuscript can help determine the best ways to preserve the objects.
Source: International Art Materials Trade Association
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