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    With Chemistry And Care, Conservators Keep Masterpieces Looking Their Best

    Armed with cotton swabs, strong solvents and a lot of training, conservators are entrusted with restoring priceless works of art. At the National Gallery of Art we learn that varnish is enemy No. 1.
    by Susan Stamberg Jun 27, 2017 3 minutes
    Senior conservator of paintings Michael Swicklik works to clean up the yellowed layers of Fra Angelico's <em>The Entombment of Christ</em>, c. 1450.

    Behind the scenes at major art museums, conservators are hard at work, keeping masterpieces looking their best. Their methods are meticulous — and sometimes surprising.

    The painting conservation studio at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., is filled with priceless works sitting on row after row of tall wooden easels, or lying on big, white-topped worktables.

    The studio is where I first met Senior Conservator Ann Hoenigswald years ago as she was fixing the sky on one of Claude Monet's impressions of the

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