How to Care for Works of Art on Paper. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Visuals included in the original published guide are not provided in this document.
Paper is taken for granted.
It is cheap, available, and expendable. At the same time it is indispensable and yet poorly understood, and it is the need for understanding, with particular reference to works of art on paper, that is the subject of this booklet. The material is based on our experience in dealing with the countless queries that have come into the Conservation Laboratory from private collectors, galleries, museums, libraries, historical societies, and even artists and framers concerning prints, drawings, watercolors, pastels, books, manuscripts, and documents. A basic explanation of the nature of paper and an enumeration of the fundamentals of preservation, including framing and matting, are brought together in a single convenient source of practical information. Perhaps a few readers will be encouraged to delve still further into the subject by consulting the works listed in the selected bibliography that follows the text.