Questionnaire to share knowledge

Documentation is a mandatory part of our profession. This is stated in all professional codes that steer today’s conservation ethic. Keeping records on condition and treatments is essential for the preservation of objects of cultural heritage. Documentation can vary in type (written, visual, or material). It aims at assisting future treatments and allows for monitoring changes in condition. This approach makes modern conservation practice fundamentally different from that of the past. Although there are collections that preserve conservation documentation that goes back to the 19th century, reporting on treatment has been broadly implemented only since the 1970s. In order to compensate this lack the conservation field has been very active in researching conservation history.

Tracing the history of wax-resin linings is an objective of the Amsterdam Wax-Resin Project, organizer of the masterclass The Dutch Method Unfolded. We would like to take the opportunity of the online program of the masterclass to grow current insight on the spreading of wax-resin lining from the Netherlands throughout the globe from the second half of the 19th century onwards.

During the two webinars in December, we noticed that many of the participants had specific knowledge on this subject and we decided to ask for their contribution in order to build this knowledge exchange document.

We would like to take the opportunity of our online program of the masterclass to grow current insight on the international practice of wax-resin lining through history. For this we developed two questionnaires that collect the insight of the participants on the history of wax-resin linings in their country and/or institute. We developed these questionnaires using an excel sheet shared through Microsoft Teams. We thought that this active shared document would be a stimulating factor for filling in the questionnaire. Furthermore, it enables each other to expend our knowledge on the topic.

Our long-term plan is to make this knowledge available for research but for now the questionnaires are only available for the participants of the masterclass.