This interview with paintings conservator Vishwa Raj Mehra focuses on his involvement with the conservation of the painted wooden vault of the ‘Grote or Sint-Vituskerk’ in Naarden in the 60s of the twentieth century and his groundbreaking work for cold-pressure lining techniques, which he developed in his function of conservation researcher at the Central Research Laboratory of Art, Object and Science in Amsterdam.

Date: 20200122

Files not yet migrated to Data Station. Files for this dataset can be found at https://easy.dans.knaw.nl/ui/datasets/id/easy-dataset:160446.

Interviews in Conservation Research is a growing collection of oral history records that can inform the preservation, conservation and presentation of works of art and cultural heritage in the Netherlands. Many professionals in museums and heritage institutions conduct interviews with artists, artist assistants and conservators, as well as with other stakeholders, such as curators, directors and collectors to learn more about the works they have in their collections. These interviews are rarely sustainably archived nor easily accessible for other researchers, as their existence as primary sources is relatively unknown. This thematic collection helps to overcome these problems and is one of the main results of the NWO funded KIEM project Interviews in Conservation Research, a partner project of the Netherlands Institute for Conservation+Art+Science (NICAS) as part of the Conservation Oral History Initiative. This is an ongoing initiative and additions to the thematic collection Interviews in Conservation Research are welcome to build a rich collection of unique source material that allows for cross-referencing and provides a unique view on the behind the scenes of the lives of works of art and cultural heritage in the Netherlands.