A Method for Studying Climate-related Changes in the Condition of Decorated Wooden Panels

Abstract

[heading]Museum objects are often highly complex and composed of materials with varying properties, some of which may have changed as a result of ageing and/or conservation treatments. Research into defining sustainable environmental conditions by balancing energy cost and risk to these vulnerable objects, has mainly focused on experiments in laboratories with new, single materials or on computer modelling, but only to a limited extent on actual objects. This paper presents a method to collect empirical data from a large group of decorated wooden panels in order to investigate the effects of humidity fluctuations on these objects and relate them to their material properties and construction. Wooden panels were chosen as they are regarded to be particularly sensitive to fluctuations in relative humidity. The fluctuations may cause the wood to shrink and swell and can result in open glue joints, cracks and deformation of the panels as well as losses and cracks in the decorative layers. Empirical data are scarcely available as yet but are essential to study relationships between material properties, type of construction, damage and as input and validation for modelling and experimental studies. The method, referred to as the Rijksmuseum Study, was performed on a group of 300 objects from the furniture and paintings collections of the Rijksmuseum.

The Mechanics of Art Materials and Its Future in Heritage Science

“…The conservation community is asking for empirical data from larger collections of museum objects (Boersma et al, 2014;Staniforth, 2014; to gain insight into changes to the general condition of susceptible objects. This type of information can be obtained by large-scale surveys of museum collections and can be used to supplement laboratory-based research and in situ measurements of mechanical damage to museum objects and as verification for models and simulations (Ekelund et al, 2017). This information might help to bridge the above-mentioned gap between scientists and conservators.…”

Hygro-mechanical response of oak wood cabinet door panels under relative humidity fluctuations

“…The veneer layers are applied plain or as marquetry, and consist of specific wood species, possibly combined with other materials, such as bone, turtle shell and ivory. The characteristics of the historical Dutch cabinet doors were systematically documented in the Rijksmuseum study [23]. This provided a useful source of information for the geometrical design of mock-ups A to F, see Fig.…”

“…In addition to research performed on specific objects, the ongoing debate within the conservation community regarding appropriate sustainable museum environments also revealed the need to provide the preservation of large museum collections with a firm, scientific basis [9,20]. For this purpose, several long-term, multidisciplinary research projects were initiated, like the Managing Collection Environments Initiative by the Getty Conservation Institute [21], and the Climate4Wood project by the Eindhoven University of Technology, Delft University of Technology, Rijksmuseum and Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands [22,23]. The first project addresses compelling research questions related to the control and management of museum environments suitable for susceptible collections [21].…”

“…The response of hygroscopic materials and objects has been studied under climate fluctuations, and epidemiology [24] has been applied to susceptible objects in order to identify how the object condition or the adverse effect of the environment appears within large museum collections. In the second project the material properties, indoor climate conditions, and type of construction of decorated oak wood panels present in the Rijksmuseum collection are investigated by combining an extensive museum study with advanced numerical modelling and dedicated laboratory and in-situ experiments [23]. From the museum study a large amount of data was collected in a systematic fashion; these data has been used (i) as input for experimental, numerical and in-situ studies on oak wood panels, and (ii) for constructing a reference case that can be employed for determining the condition of similar collections present in other museums.…”