DRIVE-BY CONSERVATION

Abstract

THE LATE AFTERNOON SUN is streaming through the windows of the seaside Picasso Museum on the Mediterranean coast of Antibes, France, where a handful of scientists are huddled around a computer. They are surrounded by Pablo Picasso’s paintings and a battery of lab equipment that they’ve transported during an 11-hour drive from Italy. Antibes might be best known as a beach vacation hot spot, but for four days in late August, it’s the primary destination for a group of mobile conservation scientists who traverse Europe in a white Volkswagen van to study masterpieces of art. Europe is full of culturally important objects, many of which are too fragile to move or are simply the wrong shape and size to fit on a typical lab bench—think of Michelangelo’s enormous “David” sculpture or prehistoric artwork painted on a cave wall. This mobile laboratory—known as MOLAB—is the brainchild of Bruno Brunetti and Antonio Sgamellotti, two chemists at Italy’s ...