Preserving the Heurich House: Boudoir Ceiling
There’s a lot of preservation, restoration, and maintenance work that needs to be done for a house as old as the Heurich House - 131 years old, to be exact. During many of those years, the ceiling in the Boudoir (Amelia Heurich’s sitting room on the 2nd floor) suffered from water damage, due to its position under a 3rd floor balcony with bad drainage.
In 2011, a conservator to removed the loose plaster and canvas, most of which was not original but instead left over from previous repairs. The Museum decided to leave the ceiling as-is, missing plaster and all, which exacerbated the look of the problem but actually made it more stable - no more chance of plaster falling on collections items! In addition to increased stability, the exposed ceiling allows visitors to get a sense of the building’s internal structure as well as the realities of change over time.
Make sure to check out the Boudoir ceiling on your next tour, and tune in next month as Dan details other restoration and preservation projects throughout the house.
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