Hosting Material Paint History: Developing a cross section of National Trust collection & interiors scientific samples.

Context

The National Trust (NT) looks after coastline, countryside, historic sites, and is one of the world's largest holders of historic properties. An active program of conservation and research on paintings and decorative finishes is centred at our Royal Oak Foundation Conservation Studio (ROFCS) at Knole in Kent. In our art historical and conservation research, we use paint samples and paint scrapes to inform conservation treatments, provenance and history of decorative schemes. We care for and research the UK's largest collection of paintings, wall paintings and painted interiors in 200 buildings dating from the 4th century Roman to the 20th century vernacular. Approximately 30% of NT paint collections have been sampled representing an unparalleled opportunity/baseline for heritage science research. Our collections number over a million wide-ranging objects including paint samples numbering in the low thousands.

Challenge

Our Material History paint samples are mostly unpublished and external and internal researchers cannot access them.

Past sampling and analysis have been carried out by small businesses, universities, or museum departments for NT. They are:

Inconsistent reports, e.g. reporting styles and data sharing methods.
Dispersed physical archives across NT - centrally, regionally or at property, or with external freelance/institutional conservation science departments.
Inconsistently labelled, packaged, and documented.
Project conservation researchers typically supplement research of decorative interiors such as the Robert Adam rooms at Kedleston and their paint schemes by carrying out paint scrapes [small windows of scraping back layers of decorative schemes]. Estimating the numbers of existing paint scrapes and identifying their locations/documentation is a huge challenge.

The new paint archive would showcase the value of interconnected research across and beyond our properties, transforming opportunities for knowledge sharing and innovative...