A conservator preserves and repairs artworks using science and craft. From Renaissance restorers to nanotechnology, learn how these professionals save paintings, sculptures, and more.
In 2019, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam began a project called Operation Night Watch. The goal was to conserve Rembrandt's "The Night Watch" (1642), the largest painting in the museum's collection, measuring 3.63 by 4.37 meters. Instead of taking the painting to a conservation lab, the museum built a glass chamber around it inside the gallery. Visitors could watch the conservators work. A team of scientists, conservators, and data specialists spent 18 months studying the painting using macro-X-ray fluorescence scanning, hyperspectral imaging, and chemical analysis before touching it with a tool. They discovered that Rembrandt had originally painted a wall behind the central figures that he later painted over, and they found lead soap formations in the paint layers that were causing tiny blisters across the surface. The project is ongoing. It is the most public and most scientifically sophisticated conservation effort ever undertaken on a single painting.
A conservator, sometimes called a restorer, is a professional who preserves, repairs, and maintains artworks and cultural artifacts. The distinction between conservation and restoration is debated but generally follows this line: conservation aims to stabilize and preserve an object, slowing further deterioration, while restoration aims to return an object to a known or assumed earlier state, often by repairing damage or replacing lost elements. In practice, most professionals do both, and the term "conservator-restorer" is used officially by the European Confederation of Conservator-Restorers' Organisations (E.C.C.O.).
This entry covers what conservators do, how the profession evolved, what science they use, and how conservation ethics have changed in the 21st century.
A conservator examines an artwork's physical condition, identifies causes of deterioration, and develops a treatment plan. The process begins with documentation: the conservator photographs the work under visible, ultraviolet, and infrared light, records existing damage, and takes microscopic samples of paint layers for analysis. Before any intervention, the conservator studies the materials the artist used, the environmental conditions the work has endured, and the history of any previous restorations.
Treatment can include cleaning (removing dirt, discolored varnish, or overpaint), consolidating (stabilizing flaking paint or delaminating layers), filling losses, and inpainting (retouching areas of lost paint to restore visual continuity). The conservator's work is guided by two principles: minimal intervention, meaning do only what is necessary to stabilize the work, and reversibility, meaning any treatment should be undoable by future conservators who may have better tools or materials.
A 2026 study published in "Surfaces and Interfaces" tested the reversibility of chromatic reintegrations on fresco paintings using a colloidal dispersion of nanosilica particles as a binder. The study compared three removal methods: mechanical scraping, laser ablation, and a gel-based chelating agent. Laser ablation proved the most reliable and controllable approach, though its effectiveness varied depending on the pigment chemistry. The study demonstrates how conservation science now operates at the nanoscale, testing materials and methods with a precision that would have been impossible a generation ago. Read the study at Surfaces and Interfaces.
Art conservation is as old as art collecting. Roman collectors repaired Greek statues. Renaissance patrons retouched frescoes. The Vatican had restorers on staff by the 18th century. But conservation as a scientific profession is a 20th-century development. The turning point was the work of the Italian chemist Rutherford John Gettens at the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard in the 1930s, who began analyzing paint samples chemically to understand how artists' materials aged. The International Institute for Conservation (IIC) was founded in 1950, and the first university conservation programs were established in the 1960s and 1970s.
The profession has also been shaped by disasters. The 1966 flood of the Arno River in Florence inundated museums, churches, and libraries, damaging or destroying thousands of artworks. The international rescue effort that followed brought conservators from around the world to Florence and is widely credited with professionalizing the field. The flood also demonstrated that emergency response planning was an essential part of conservation, not an afterthought.
A 2026 study published in "Heritage" journal demonstrated how far the field has come. Researchers applied an integrated diagnostic approach to Michele di Matteo's 15th-century altarpiece "Coronation of the Virgin," using multispectral imaging, hyperspectral imaging, Raman spectroscopy, visible reflectance spectroscopy, and nano-liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry. The study documented chromatic changes induced by a 2023 cleaning, revealed a preparatory drawing and previously unknown decorative elements through infrared reflectography, and identified the proteinaceous binding media the artist used. Read the study at Heritage.
Modern conservation relies on scientific instruments that were developed for materials science, forensics, and medical imaging. X-radiography reveals underlying compositions and structural details. Infrared reflectography exposes preparatory drawings beneath the paint surface. Raman spectroscopy identifies pigments by their molecular fingerprint. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analyzes binding media and varnishes. Scanning electron microscopy reveals the structure of paint layers at the micrometer scale.
Nanotechnology has opened new treatment possibilities. A 2026 review published in "Discover Chemistry" by Springer Nature examined how nanoscale treatments can neutralize acidity, stabilize inks, and enhance material compatibility in manuscript conservation. The review found that nearly 40 percent of recent publications in the field emphasize nanomaterials for conservation treatments, reflecting a shift from traditional polymer-based consolidants toward nanoscale interventions that operate at the same scale as the degradation processes themselves. Read the review at Discover Chemistry.
Training has evolved to match. The Bern Academy of the Arts in Switzerland offers a Master of Arts in Conservation-Restoration with specializations in Architecture and Furnishings, Paintings and Sculptures, Graphics and Written Material and Photography, and Contemporary Art and Media. The degree certifies graduates as fully qualified professionals according to E.C.C.O. standards. The program began accepting students for autumn 2026 in September 2026. Read about the program at Bern Academy of the Arts.
Conservation ethics were developed for classical works: oil paintings on canvas, marble sculptures, frescoes. The core principles are minimal intervention, reversibility, and recognizability: any repair should be visible on close inspection so that future conservators know what is original and what is added. These principles work well for a Rembrandt or a Raphael. They become problematic when the artwork is made of chocolate, soap, fluorescent tubes, video equipment, or living organisms.
A 2025 article published by Istanbul University Press examined how traditional ethical standards apply to contemporary art conservation. The article argued that minimum intervention and recognizability, which "have represented the dominant approach in the conservation of artworks, should be recognised as strategies, not ethical principles and should be opened to discussion." Contemporary artists use transient and non-permanent materials, and their work may depend on deterioration or change over time. Conserving such a work may mean allowing it to age, not preventing it from aging. The article called for multidisciplinary conservation decisions that involve the artist, the artist's estate, and experts from outside the traditional conservation field. Read the article at Istanbul University Press.
Gettens was the first scientist to work full-time in an art museum, joining the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard in the 1930s. He analyzed pigments and binding media chemically, establishing that conservation could be grounded in laboratory science rather than craft tradition alone. His 1966 book "Painting Materials: A Short Encyclopaedia," co-authored with George Stout, remains a standard reference.
Coremans directed the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage in Brussels and led the scientific investigation of the Ghent Altarpiece by the Van Eyck brothers. His work demonstrated that technical analysis could answer art historical questions about attribution, dating, and working methods. The Ghent Altarpiece continues to be a testing ground for conservation science: in 2020, researchers published a paper on using AI to detect and classify cracks on the altarpiece's surface.
Operation Night Watch, launched in 2019, is the most public conservation project in history. The Rijksmuseum built a glass-walled chamber inside its gallery so visitors could watch conservators work on Rembrandt's masterpiece. The project has used macro-X-ray fluorescence scanning, chemical analysis, and computer modeling to map the painting's condition at a level of detail never before achieved on a work of this scale.
The conservator's work intersects with several art world functions. Provenance research and conservation are complementary: knowing an artwork's history of ownership and display helps conservators understand its current condition. The Old Master paintings that fill museums are survivors of centuries of conservation decisions, some good, some disastrous. The fresco technique presents specific conservation challenges because the paint is integrated into the wall surface and cannot be moved. For more on preserving art at home, read our post on how to store and preserve artwork at home, or explore our guide to framing art and why it changes everything.
Several museums have made conservation visible to the public. The Rijksmuseum's Operation Night Watch is the most prominent example, with the glass-walled conservation chamber still accessible to visitors. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a conservation department that periodically offers public tours and publishes technical bulletins. The Tate in London has a conservation team that works on contemporary art challenges, from preserving fluorescent tubes by Dan Flavin to maintaining the chocolate and soap sculptures of Dieter Roth.
For more on the science behind art preservation, read our entries on provenance and fresco, or explore our post on how to tell a painting's age without looking at the label to learn more about what materials and techniques reveal about a work's history.
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