Art Conservation: The Cost of Saving Great Works of Art

Art conservation is widely practiced by museums as an effort to maintain and improve great pieces of artwork. The practice of conserving these artworks is controversial because some significant restorations have resulted in removing important aspects of the original works or painting over them entirely. As centuries of restorations accrue, museums risk losing the original work, creating an entirely new artwork. This Comment proposes that an international committee should review proposals to restore artworks before the projects begin. The proposed committee would consider the potential risks and weigh them against the benefits, discouraging museums from entering into these projects hastily. Museums would need to use standardized conservation techniques and procedures. The regulation of this industry and museums would result in conservations that are of excellent quality, rather than done in great quantity. In doing so, this committee would help to protect paintings from continuous efforts to save them