Overview
Immediately after the Estonian National Museum was founded in 1909, work gradually began on preserving and organizing the collected objects. 1965. On 30 September 1965, a restoration laboratory was established within the collections department, employing artist-restorers specializing in metal, textiles, and wood.
1991. In 1991, a separate unit specifically responsible for collection care was created and named the Hygiene Sector. Its tasks included the primary care of objects, pest control, and ensuring proper environmental conditions.
Over the years, the number of conservators and collection care staff, as well as their areas of expertise, has grown steadily, and both professional training and working conditions have improved.
Since 2008, conservators and collection care specialists have once again been part of the same department, now called the Conservation Department.
Today, the department’s main objective is to ensure the long-term preservation and usability of the museum’s object and archival collections for future generations.
The department is responsible for collection care and conservation, monitoring environmental conditions in storage areas and exhibition halls, and assessing the condition of museum objects. A significant part of the workload consists of preparing museum objects for exhibitions, ensuring the safest possible display conditions and transport for them.
Collection Care
In preservation work, the main priority is the prevention and slowing down of damage to the collections. Primary attention is directed at improving storage conditions and reducing risks of damage during storage, display, and research use. The possible impact of biological agents is monitored regularly, damage is managed, and storage rooms are cleaned. Environmental conditions are also monitored, and protective enclosures made of materials suitable for long-term preservation are prepared.
Conservation
The professional specialization of the conservators is based on the primary materials of the museum objects in ERM’s collections. Areas of expertise include the conservation of objects made of textiles, wood, metal, paper, leather, and plastic. In addition, work is carried out on the conservation of polychrome wood and various types of photographic materials. The work follows conservation ethics, using both interventive and non-interventive approaches. Regardless of the method, the aim is to slow the deterioration processes of museum objects, preserve the information associated with them, and supplement the object’s history or provenance through historical and material research.
Outreach
In order to share knowledge and experience, we offer consultations and organize training sessions and information days for other museums and professional specialists. Our conservators present research-based papers at various seminars and conferences in Estonia and abroad.
To introduce the field more broadly, we are actively involved in developing educational programmes and periodically conduct workshops on conservation and restoration.
