Measuring what time does to a work.
A condition report established in a stable metrological register, reproduced identically from one campaign to the next.
A work goes out on loan and comes back. It spends a winter in a poorly regulated store. It comes off a truck. Has anything moved?
The eye will not tell you. Nor will two photographs taken two years apart, under two different lights and two different lenses.
What differs comes from the work, not from the camera.
Geometry, lighting and colorimetry are constrained and reproduced identically from one campaign to the next. That constraint is what makes the comparison hold up.
The examination covers relief, the craquelure network, lifting and colour drift.
- An illustrated structural and chromatic condition report
- A map of the craquelure network and its directional reading
- For every later campaign: a differential comparison with the previous one, in the same register
- The raw data of each campaign, retained
Before and after a loan. Before and after transport. On entry to and exit from a restorer's studio.
As periodic monitoring for the sensitive works in a collection. After damage, to establish its real extent.
Tell us about your works.
Describe what you need. We will tell you what can be measured, what cannot, and what it involves.