What we store
Six Materials, Six Ways of Failing
Paintings, works on paper, photographs, sculpture, furniture and mixed collections. Each fails differently, and the environment that protects one can damage another.
Come and see the environment before you send anything. Bring your registrar, your conservator or your insurer — we would rather they saw it than took our word for it.
Climate
Controlled temperature and relative humidity, continuously
Above
Above the floodplain — not a basement
Condition
Reported on intake and on every movement
Named
You know who handles your work
6 what we store
Written with your conservator in mind.
Paintings
Stretched canvas and wooden panel respond to moisture in the air by moving. Stored well they are stable for decades; stored in a swinging environment they crack.
Read more →
Works on Paper
Drawings, prints, watercolours and documents. The damage is slow, cumulative and usually invisible until it is substantial.
Read more →
Photographs & Negatives
Photographic material is chemically active. Color dyes shift, acetate film decays, and both processes are driven by temperature and humidity.
Read more →
Sculpture & Objects
Three-dimensional works fail mechanically rather than chemically. The risks are handling, support and the point where somebody decided one person could manage it.
Read more →
Furniture & Decorative Arts
Antique furniture is a wooden structure held together with animal glue and faced with veneer. All three respond to humidity, and they respond differently from one another.
Read more →
Mixed Collections
Estates, private collections and the contents of a house being renovated. The material is mixed, and the problem is usually documentation rather than environment.
Read more →
Tell us what needs to move.
What, from where, and roughly when. You do not need an inventory to start the conversation, and if the job belongs with an armored carrier we will say so on the call.