Clarkson Launch 008 - A. Quandt - Clarkson and Conservation at the Walters Art Museum..
Channel: International Assoc. of Book & Paper Conservators
Date: 2021-03-10

Abigail Quandt received one of her first bookbinding lessons from Chris Clarkson in 1976. She later went on to earn a Masters in Science and Diploma in Conservation from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Art Conservation Program in 1982, with a specialization in rare book conservation. From 1982-84 she was an advanced intern under Anthony Cains at Trinity College Library, Dublin and spent one month studying with the English bookbinder and conservator Roger Powell. In 1984 she began working at the Walters Art Museum as a visiting manuscripts conservator and joined the staff in 1989. A specialist in the conservation of illuminated manuscripts on parchment Ms. Quandt has been Head of Book and Paper Conservation at the Walters since 2001. She has taught a five-day course on parchment conservation for book and paper conservators and leads workshops for students in the American graduate programs. She was the co-compiler of a chapter on parchment for the AIC Paper Conservation Catalog which was published in 1994 and reformatted as a wiki in 2017. Ms. Quandt was the principal conservator for the Archimedes Palimpsest Project (1999-2012) and also supervised the treatment and rebinding of the Syriac Galen Palimpsest for a similar multi-spectral imaging and transcription project based at the Walters.

Quandt, Abigail B. ‘Chris Clarkson and His Contributions to the Study, Care, and Conservation of Manuscripts and Rare Books at the Walters Art Museum’. Journal of Paper Conservation 20, no. 1–4 (2 October 2019): 158–69. https://doi.org/10.1080/18680860.2019.1747867.

Early in his career as a rare book conservator Christopher Clarkson worked at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, from February 1977 to August 1979. Hired by the Curator of Manuscripts and Rare Books, Dr. Lilian M.C. Randall, with a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Clarkson conducted a condition survey of the western European manuscripts and wrote detailed descriptions of their structure and bindings for the first comprehensive catalogue to be published of the collection. Clarkson provided training for Walters staff in the handling and display of early books and, with Randall's support, drafted a lengthy monograph on the subject that included instructions on the fabrication of Plexiglas® book cradles. As Clarkson's time was limited, he was unable to undertake the specialized treatment of manuscripts with broken textblocks and bindings. Recognizing the complex problems of thickly applied media on flexible parchment supports, Clarkson made a significant contribution to the preservation of the Walters collection by recommending important changes to existing protocols, established in the late 1960s, for the consolidation of flaking paint in the manuscripts. The experience that Clarkson had at the Walters was significant, as it shaped his thinking about the role of the conservator in studying and caring for early books and in establishing model preservation programmes for special collections in research libraries as well as museums.