Miche Project

A gilt-framed landscape painting half lifted out of its open wooden crate in a dark storeroom, lit by one work lamp

The storeroom, before openingNotes on art, where it travels and where it comes to rest.

  1. Corner of a plywood fine-art shipping crate on a concrete loading dock, with a humidity card taped to its side No. 1What a crate tells youA travelling painting spends more of its life in a box than most visitors would guess. The box is built for that one picture.
  2. A blank cream museum label beside the corner of a carved wooden frame on a deep red gallery wall No. 2Reading the labelThe small card beside a painting holds more than a title. Most of what it says is about where the picture has been.
  3. The back of an old framed painting lying face down, with faded labels, chalk marks and a wax seal on the stretcher bars No. 3Provenance, one owner at a timeA painting's ownership history is built from sale catalogues, letters and labels on the back of the frame. The gaps matter as much as the names.
  4. A gloved hand working a cotton swab across an old landscape painting under a magnifying lamp, with swabs in a jar and small dishes of solvent on the bench No. 4The conservator's benchRestoration on television looks dramatic. At the bench it is mostly patience, swabs and very good light.
  5. A long, nearly empty museum gallery with one wooden bench and a single visitor seated far away No. 5A gallery on a Tuesday morningMuseums are different places when they are nearly empty. A weekday morning is the best time to find that out.
  6. Wrapped flat crates in wooden racks along the slate wall of a dim quarry tunnel lit by bare bulbs No. 6When the paintings went undergroundIn 1939 the great museums of Europe emptied their walls in days. Some of their pictures spent the war inside a mountain.