Left: Detail, folio from the Falnama (Book of Omens), The Angel of Death Slays Shaddard, Safavid period, mid-1550s–early 1560s, S1986.253; Right: Detail, Shoreline in Moonlight, by Kawase Hasui, S2003.8.547.

Paper Conservation: Current Projects

Islamic collection survey

Paper Conservation is undertaking a survey of the Islamic art-on-paper collections to assess their condition and identify potential treatment and housing issues. Such surveys help define discrete conservation projects that can be undertaken by staff, interns, volunteers, or contractors. Additionally, the project is focusing on the Islamic papers themselves, looking at such factors as thickness and pulp quality to gain insights on regional or stylistic differences.

Japanese works-on-paper project

The Robert O. Muller Collection consists of more than 4,500 Japanese woodblock prints, representing 240 artists, and is one of the world's finest collections of Japanese prints from the late 1860s through the 1940s. The prints came to the museum in high-quality mats; however, many of them were attached to the mats with random applications of adhesive or pressure-sensitive tapes. To properly house them and allow for digitization, any prints that are adhered to their mats are being removed, and the entire collection is being moved into high-quality storage folders.