de Saisset Museum

collection spotlight

Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)
2007 Conservation Project Support Grant

Last year the Museum was awarded a grant of $44,045 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to support a two-year comprehensive conservation survey of the works on paper in the permanent collection. The 5,045-object collection includes prints and drawings from the Renaissance period to the present and represents one of the Museum’s strongest collections.

The project began in June 2007 with Santa Clara-based paper conservator Kathleen Orlenko performing the condition examinations. The process of surveying the collection includes inspecting the works, entering condition notes and recommendations in the collections database, photographing each work, and returning the works to storage in better condition than we found them. Orlenko has been removing acidic mats, old masking tape, and other damaging materials from the prints and photographs as we move through the works on paper collection. As she does this, I am correcting misspellings and inaccuracies about the prints in the database. The project is also a form of inventory, as the locations of all works on paper are being checked and sometimes corrected through the process of accessing them. Orlenko has also provided the Museum with a copy of Bryan’s Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, which has provided an invaluable resource in learning more about the printers and the prints.

As of December 2007, one fifth of the collection has been examined. Through this process, we have learned a great deal about this collection. For instance, while we were aware that the Museum holds many William Hogarth and Albrecht Dürer prints, along with wonderful prints by Giambattista Piranesi, Ed Ruscha, and Käthe Kollwitz, we were delighted to “discover” prints by Angelica Kauffman, an 18th century Swiss Neoclassical painter, one of the few women artists to have achieved notoriety in this period. There is also a collection of 60 woodblock prints from The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting, a Chinese drawing and painting instruction book revised and published many times since its origin in the 17th century. The condition of these prints, while good, and the kind of paper they were printed on suggest they come from one of the earliest editions.

With such a relatively large collection of prints, it is no wonder some of these gems of the collection have been forgotten. As we go through the collection and rediscover some of these amazing prints, we can determine which works we would like to research, authenticate, and possibly conserve.

There is so much potential in the print collection for integrated education that is currently untapped. I look forward to making these prints available to faculty and students for teaching and learning in the near future. For information on accessing the print collection, please visit www.scu.edu/desaisset/education/index.cfm.

Jean MacDougall, ’94
Collections Manager


This project is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this web site do not necessarily represent those of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.