Leslie,
I did a furniture conservation treatment project for a major historic house museum in the mid-south that involved every piece of furniture in the house in perhaps 15 round trip moves (untreated furniture to my studio in NH, treated furniture back to them) spaced over several years. On the first three trips with two different fine art moving companies (well-known at that), pieces were damaged on two of the trips by both companies. On one trip, they broke the top off of a high-posted bed! Our solution was for me to do the packing/transportation myself. There was zero damage after that.
My experience with a number of fine art moving companies is that they are companies. Fine art handling is a special skill. It is not remotely related to household moving or weight-lifting. If you get an actual fine art handler as part of your two-person (generally) crew, you should be fine. If you get two behemoths that can lift cars if necessary, maybe there will be problems. That is where the trouble lies in my personal experience. The companies hire based upon low cost in many cases. Their in-house training is not nearly adequate to turn out true art handlers, nor do they have experience in the myriad ways that creative and safe packing can be used. Furthermore, there are right and wrong ways to lift furniture (one of the pieces mentioned above was damaged by improper handling), and this is a specific skill that they may be lacking. In addition, the hired guns are mostly there to make a paycheck, and do not have the degree of care and concern that the owner generally does.
So my suggestion is to work with the art handler principals of the company if possible - at least one should be involved in every move of the furniture. This may be difficult with the best-known companies unless they are based in the Boston area. So, perhaps locate a smaller company in your area that is a true fine arts handler who will be happy to provide a principal. Or perhaps you can find one who is an independent operator rather than a "company." It is possible, although you would have to check, that a fine art handler at one of the larger Boston museums would moonlight on your project. When I was at the Museum of Fine Arts, one of theirs was doing just that and eventually left to found Fine Arts Express. The other factor to consider, and in your instance it probably will not be a concern, is that the bulk of the damage is in the unloading of the truck in a warehouse, then reloading into a different truck with a different crew to go to the final destination. This often occurs on longer moves with larger companies. Whenever moving furniture or other larger objects, it is highly preferable for it to be a direct move - the items will remain on the truck until their destination. Even better is a direct exclusive-use move - nobody else's objects are on the truck. Generally these cost a bit more, but especially if you have enough to fill a truck, the difference may be minor. It is much less expensive to have a safe move than pay for conservation after the fact. With due diligence you will find someone who will successfully move your furniture.
If you are talking about the furniture from Beacon Street, I have personally seen and photographed every piece of furniture on a project for the church. Much of that furniture is upholstered and some is rather decorative. I would suggest that every piece first be covered by a large 1-mil (very thin) polyethylene furniture bag. I get these in two sizes to fit most everything - sofa, and tall chest. This will protect the surfaces from dirt or debris that may be on the packing blankets as well as prevent abrasion damage. Good luck!
Marc
American Conservation Consortium, Ltd.
4 Rockville Road
Broad Brook, CT 06016
www.conservator.com
860-386-6058
*Collections Preservation Consultation
*Conservation Assessments & Surveys
*Environmental Monitoring & Low-Tech Control
*Moisture Management Solutions
*Collections in Historic Structures
*Collections Care Grant Preparation
Marc A. Williams, President
MS in Art Conservation, Winterthur Museum Program
Former Chief Wooden Objects Conservator, Smithsonian Institution
Fellow, American Institute for Conservation (AIC)
From: Leslie Vollnogle
Sent: Wednesday, July 06, 2016 7:55 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [MUSEUM-L] moving historically significant furniture
My supervisor wanted me to post a question concerning moving furniture by professional art handlers. Does anyone have any suggestions on the best way to move historically significant furniture with direct provenance and significance to the mission of our museum? We will be moving it from a climate controlled storage unit of another institution and will most probably be moving it directly to a historic house, unless there is another storage option. Most of the furniture originally came from this historical house, and was there for nearly 100 years, but has been in a climate controlled storage unit for the last 10 years or so. The historic house has heat but no air conditioning. We will be moving the furniture sometime in September or so. A lot of the furniture will be on exhibit at the house on the lower two floors which are heated in the winter, but some of it will probably need to be stored on the third floor where it might not be heated.
Here is my supervisor’s question.
Question: Does packing, moving and unpacking take a toll on furniture? We have heard that this might be the case—but would like to get your thought on this. In our case the work would be done by professional art handlers, not by museum staff or by general moving contractors. Thank you.
Any thoughts or suggestions would be most appreciated.
Thank you,
Leslie A. Vollnogle
Collections Manager
Longyear Museum
1125 Boylston Street, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
T 617.278.9000 x315| F 617.278.9003 | www.longyear.org
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