How it works · Access & Viewing
Seeing Your Own Work
Stored work still needs to be seen — by you, your appraiser, a conservator, or a prospective buyer. Access is by appointment and it is handled rather than self-service.
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
Self-service access is how work gets damaged
A facility that lets you walk to a rack and pull out your own painting is offering convenience at the cost of the thing you came for. Most damage to stored art happens during unplanned handling by people who are not handlers, however careful and however much the work is theirs.
Notice matters more than people expect for viewings with a third party. Work retrieved and allowed to acclimatize shows properly; work pulled from a rack fifteen minutes beforehand can carry condensation or simply be presented badly, which is a poor way to show something to an appraiser or a prospective buyer.
How access works
- By appointment, so the work is retrieved and prepared properly.
- Retrieved and handled by our staff, not by visitors.
- A viewing space with appropriate light.
- Third parties — appraisers, conservators, buyers — on your written authority.
- Every access logged.
Why we retrieve rather than you
Most damage to stored art happens during unplanned handling, and it happens to people who care about the work as much as anyone — owners, family members, dealers. Care is not the variable; practice and planning are.
Handling by staff who do it daily, with the work prepared in advance and somewhere proper to put it down, removes the circumstances in which accidents happen rather than relying on nobody making one.
How we handle it
- 01Schedule access so handling is planned rather than improvised.
- 02Retrieve, uncover and present the work ourselves.
- 03Admit third parties only on your written authority.
- 04Log every access, with who and when.
- 05Re-report condition on return to storage.
Give us notice for a viewing with an appraiser or a buyer. Work retrieved and acclimatized in advance shows properly; work pulled out at fifteen minutes' notice does not, and it is a poor way to present something you may be trying to sell.
Said plainly
Where we stop
We will not admit anybody without your written authority, including people who arrive certain they are expected. That is occasionally inconvenient and it is not negotiable.
Common questions
- Can we come and browse?
- Access is by appointment and work is retrieved by our staff. Self-service is how stored art gets damaged.
- Can our appraiser visit?
- Yes, on your written authority.
- How much notice?
- More is better, particularly for a buyer or appraiser — work shows properly when it has been prepared.
- Is access recorded?
- Yes, every time, with who and when.
What we store
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.
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Works on Paper
Drawings, prints, watercolours and documents. The damage is slow, cumulative and usually invisible until it is substantial.
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Photographs & Negatives
Photographic material is chemically active. Color dyes shift, acetate film decays, and both processes are driven by temperature and humidity.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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More how it works
Intake & Condition Reporting
Intake is the most important day in a work's time with us, because everything afterwards is measured against what was recorded then.
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Insurance & Valuation
Your work is insured under your policy or a specialist fine art policy. Our role is to give your underwriter records they will accept.
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Exhibition Loans
A loan request is a good problem. It also involves paperwork, condition reporting at both ends, and a work leaving a controlled environment for months.
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.