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the paint on this sculpture it's in tough shape a lot of it is flaking so before I can safely clean it I need to consolidate that paint my goal in cleaning this marble sculpture is to remove the dirt and grime from the surface so I am using a laser cleaning technique we're in the conservation labs at the Gardner Museum conservation is a field that is divided into three components art history studio art and chemistry a conservator needs to understand a work of art from its art historical background what time period it comes from who made it how it was made from a studio art perspective having the hand skills to care for a work of art and then chemistry understanding what a piece is made up of how it deteriorates and then what methods we can use to care for a work of art and not harm the work of art in any way jessica is working on an early 16th century piece that's been carved and then painted and one of the things that she's looking at specifically is that paint the triangles indicate points where I've actually taken very small samples of the paint and when you look at it under a microscope you see the cross-section of all the layers of paint so it gives us the history of what was done before jessica is also looking very carefully at where the paint has been lost and making sure that this piece does not deteriorate further the paint on this sculpture is flaking I take a little bit of solvent and put it in and then follow that up with a fish glue in this case and that first solvent draws it in and then if I need to I can use this little heated spatula to apply a little bit of heat to the surface and it just relaxes the paint back down an object in this condition takes quite a while to conserve so he will probably be here for about a year when the field of conservation we're always looking for the best way that we can care for a work of art and in some ways those are the techniques that we have been using for years at other points we're learning new ways of caring for a work of art that is going to be even better we are proud of the fact that we're one of the first museums in the u.s. to own a laser it is a machine that was originally developed for the medical industry most significantly it's used to remove tattoos and the way that it works is it produces a beam of energy that is absorbed really well by the dirt and grime on the surface of a marble sculpture the noise that you're hearing it's a snapping noise and that's actually at the point at which the dirt is absorbing the laser energy it's it's fairly quiet when you're directing the laser beam at an area that's already clean by bringing back the original marble surface you're allowing the the visitor to really see all of the detail in the grapevine or the muscles of the figure it's very exciting for us when a frequent visitor says they're able to appreciate a piece in a different way because of the work that we do it's a really wonderful feeling