Von Chua:

From preparing a collection for an exhibition to storing the collection at the end of an exhibition, can you tell us what are the main areas of concern?

Yunsun Choi:

The collections are at most vulnerable when they are being moved and handled, so even though our collection is static, we do change our display from time to time. It is often handled and moved, that’s where the danger comes in. My interest in the collection is the wellbeing of the collection. Before anything is moved, we condition check them to see the condition of the item first, if it is safe to move, and how we move the item, we think about it before we move them. During the movement, we oversee the whole movement of the collection, and then after the movement, we condition check them as well. And if we feel that the item is vulnerable, perhaps we will carry out the treatment before we move, or we will change the methodology of it.

Before anything is moved, we condition check them to see the condition of the item first, if it is safe to move, and how we move the item, we think about it before we move them.

Yunsun Choi, Head of Collection Care, The Wallace Collection

Von Chua:

When you say treatment before you move, what are they before moving a vulnerable item?

Yunsun Choi:

It depends. So when we talk about the treatment of the items, we talk about two things, (i) display-ready treatment, (ii) full-on treatment. Display ready treatment will be safe to move, safe to be handled. For example, if we find that a painting is flaking or some areas that we feel may move during the movement, we may consolidate them. Or for example, if we have a furniture leg, if you move it and it might fall off, then we would do some similar consolidation into the leg to make sure the leg wouldn’t move, or sometimes we actually move the leg separately then put them back together.

The other type of treatment would be full-on treatment. Sometimes, if you’re looking at a painting and it’s flaky, a little bit of consolidation is one thing, but to look at it and remove the varnish, retouch it, revarnishing it, consolidating is also another. There are different types of treatment we’re talking about but when it’s movement, that’s a superficial treatment to make sure that when we move the collection, it will be safe.

We have a large collection. Access is an issue at the Wallace Collection. When we move the collection, we make sure we have enough people around, so will book our handling team. We have an in-house team but we may have extra handlers to come to help us. At the same time, having too many people can also be a risk so we manage the whole situation. It’s all about planning in advance.

Clare Simpson:

A recent change to the reinterpretation of our will last year, a huge constitutional change for The Wallace Collection in terms of lend out, so we are the team that led the first loan out from The Wallace Collection over to the National Gallery. It’s really opened up lots of different opportunities for us to pull our internal knowledge and skillsets that we’ve all brought from other institutions to The Wallace Collection. We are a little team that has been brought in to address this new requirement of major loans in and opportunities for loans out - we’re leading that national and international reach. So that speaks to some of the things that Yunsun was describing, in us having to make sure that our collection is display ready.

Dr Yuriko Jackall:

The Wallace Collection is still very much a house museum, very much defined by personal taste. Hence this kind of description of eclectic that Yunsun was giving it, because it is very much, as opposed to collection constructed by curators who are trying to think about creating something more encyclopedic. The display as well tries to emulate how it was in Sir Richard Wallace’s day, but there is a conscious decision to try to emulate as much as possible this house museum character. And that’s an interesting consideration for museum professionals, especially for curators, conservators, and people in the exhibitions field. We all come from an area where there is the desire to move the collection, to assess it from a conservation perspective, to some things out on loans, to play with displays a little bit even in the permanent collection galleries, having it sit with the ethos of a house museum creates an interesting tension. And I think it’s an interesting tension in a positive, creative way.

One of those things really is trying to balance that when things are going out on displays, to exhibitions, that’s really the opportunity to assess them for condition no matter what type of object they are. It’s balancing that with a collection that doesn’t really move, trying to create a structure whereby things are regularly assessed is a real challenge. And trying to balance some of the display decisions that naturally come with the house museum aesthetic, so a salon-style hang for pictures where they go right up to the ceiling, but then that means you can’t look at them closely, and therefore you can’t assess them for condition. It’s always a balance.