3 minute read
In the Spotlight: RCM Conservator Susana Caldeira
IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Susana Caldeira
RCM Museum Conservator Susana Caldeira invites Upbeat into her workshop, where the College’s most precious artifacts are preserved, repaired and restored.
RCM Conservator Susana Caldeira
In Susana Caldeira’s workshop are several precious historical instruments waiting to be expertly restored to their former glory. The RCM Museum Conservator is mixing rabbit-skin glue pellets with water to form a versatile adhesive for the 17th century Hamburger Cithrinchen on the worktable.
‘Rabbit-skin glue is strong and versatile with a nice setting time, ideal for use on wood and ivory. It also reactivates any residual glue on the instrument. Conservation,’ she continues, ‘is a profession that bridges science and art together.’
Which is why, with its woodwork tools and vials of chemicals, her office is something of a cross between a laboratory and workshop. Here, objects undergo the first step in any conservation project: a thorough examination, checking for fractures, losses and insect infestation.
‘We look at old repairs using endoscopes and mirrors,’ says Susana. ‘We also use ultraviolet light to examine glue residues and varnishes. And if we need to look under the surface, we take an instrument for a radiography or CT scan.’
17th-century Hamburger Cithrinchen
Susana’s Conservation and Restoration degree included both art history and scientific components, as well art modules such as sculpture, woodwork and photography. Alongside, she studied recorder, voice and music theory at Lisbon’s Academia de Amadores de Música.
In the fourth year of her degree, Susana travelled to America to specialise in the conservation of musical instruments at the National Music Museum in Vermillion, South Dakota, where she then completed an MMus in the History of Musical Instruments.
Since then, her career has taken her across the globe to care for instruments in a range of museums, including Lisbon’s Museu da Música and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Susana joined the Royal College of Music in 2015, where her job is to preserve and conserve not only the RCM Museum’s musical instruments, but also the paintings and busts that line the College’s corridors and offices.
A pochette violin
Among the many fascinating objects under her care, she names two as her favourite: John Singer Sargent’s beautiful 1914 portrait of the actress Georgina Henschel, and the earliest known existing guitar, crafted by Belchior Dias in Lisbon in 1581.
It can be challenging work, trying to find a conservation solution for each unique object, while staying true to the principles of reversibility and maintaing respect for the original. But it’s rewarding, too. ‘It gives me a sense of accomplishment when I finish a project and know others will be able to enjoy it,’ she says.
In 2016, Susana played an integral part in the decantment of the RCM Museum before construction could begin on the new building, deciding if any remedial conservation was required before storage. When the artifacts move into their new home, the environmental conditions will need to be meticulously controlled.
Organic materials like wood and ivory, Susana explains, require higher humidity levels than metals, for example, which need dry conditions to prevent rust.
‘In a museum such as ours which features composite objects,’ she says, ‘we aim for a compromise of around 50% humidity.’ Temperature and light can be damaging, too, and so the new RCM Museum should be kept between 17 and 20 degrees Celsius and completely free of ultraviolet light.
Susana's workshop
‘Conservators are trained for detail,’ Susana says, ‘each object is unique and deserves attention and respect. Museums nowadays seem to go in the direction of the masses, but focussing on digital presence – retweets and likes – is not enough. Fashions come and go, but if objects are lost, no fashion will bring them back.’
