I have a duel-view on this topic.  As a Curator, my first instinct is to
protect the collection.  As the girlfriend of a furniture maker, I
understand the need for access to an object in order to actually reproduce
it.  From my own experience, even the most talented woodworkers cannot
fiathfully reproduce a piece of furniture without examining it themselves.
Now, by all means, museum staff must be present at all times when such a
craftsman is examining an object.  But I also do not think museum staff
taking the measurements is enough.

I think this thread has actually skipped over the main question: should
craftspeople (artist or for-profit furniture makers) have access to and
make a reproduction of a museum-owned object?  My advice would be this: a
furniture maker, and even probably an artist, has every intention to sell a
piece of work if someone will buy it.  They all have bills to pay too!  If
someone wants to make an exact reproduction of your museum's object, then
you need to create an agreement of permission to do so and require a
portion of the selling price to be paid back to the museum.  That way the
museum gets something out of the deal too.  If the artist or craftsman does
not make an exact reproduction, but changes it in some way, then it is his
or her own creation and your museum cannot have any claim to the profits.

Kate Higgins
Curator
Pejepscot Historical Society
Brunswick, ME 04011
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