Art Documentation

Overview

A record the conservator can rely on

Artwork is documented for many reasons — insurance, loan, sale, conservation, publication — and each of them depends on the record being made carefully in the first place. A photograph taken to a consistent standard, with known lighting and accurate colour, remains useful decades after the day it was made.

Work is carried out in the studio and on site at galleries, stores and private collections. Alongside standard documentation, ultraviolet examination reveals retouching, overpaint and surface differences that ordinary light conceals — the two records read together tell a conservator far more than either alone.

Every commission is delivered as a calibrated image set with written notes describing what was observed and how it was recorded.

Typically covers

• Archival-quality photographic documentation
• Ultraviolet fluorescence imaging
• Raking and specular light examination
• Condition reporting and comparison sets
• Pre- and post-conservation records
• Provenance and insurance documentation