In Buddhism, shrines serve as portals that bridge the mundane and sacred realms. At the National Museum of Asian Art, visitors have the chance to experience what it might be like to visit these awe-inspiring sacred spaces by entering the Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room in gallery 26, or by exploring a digital recreation of the room online. However, visitors don’t often have the chance to observe firsthand how the collection is cared for behind the scenes. How do these objects stay in good condition, ready for public display?

Here at the museum, we have a team of dedicated conservators and conservation scientists who help care for the objects held in trust by the museum. As part of an initiative that began in 2021 to assess and document the provenance history of all objects in our South Asian and Southeast Asian collections, the Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room will undergo a large-scale conservation project. Over the next few months, we invite museum visitors to see conservation at work in the gallery and to speak with conservators about how they preserve the collections.

The Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room collection, which was donated to the museum by New York collector Alice S. Kandell, includes more than 250 bronze statues, ceremonial objects, paintings, silk hangings, and furniture pieces that were created in Tibet, China, and Mongolia between the thirteenth and early twentieth centuries. Rather than exhibiting the objects separately in cases, like a typical museum display might look, the collection is displayed in the traditional arrangements customary in Tibetan Buddhist shrines. As a permanent exhibition within the museum, the shrine is regularly cared for and monitored. Conservators dust the artworks and make sure the environmental conditions in which they are displayed, including appropriate light, temperature, and relative humidity levels, are optimal.

Although conservators routinely maintain the Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room, this year’s conservation project will allow us to focus on the long-term preservation of the collection. In that effort, we will closely examine, clean, and treat each object as necessary. Conservators use a variety of hand tools, light sources, and analytical techniques to assess objects for condition issues, such as accumulated dirt and grime, cracks or scratches, flaking of painted surfaces, loose or unstable elements, corrosion of metals, or changes to old repairs and restorations. We will bring any piece that requires further treatment to the lab and return it to the gallery when we complete the treatment.

To begin this project, we must closely examine all objects in the room to determine which ones need treatment. Due to the densely layered arrangement of the collection within the room, however, some of the objects are difficult to access, some are too heavy to move, and some are too fragile to handle without causing potential damage to them. To facilitate the condition assessment, therefore, our examination of the artworks will occur largely in the gallery to minimize the handling of the collection.

If you are interested in learning more about what conservators do, we invite you to visit gallery 26 on Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to noon, February 14 to March 27, 2024, to see objects conservator Tamara Dissi at work in the Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room. Check our event calendar for further details. Stop by to chat with Tamara, ask questions, and see conservation in action!