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ICOM’s general conference in Kyoto in 2019 o ers the opportunity for the
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for Museology (ICOFOM) to jointly re ect on common scienti c interests and
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interests in critical re ection upon the museum motivated the two committees
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of di erent methods and approaches? And nally, how can conservation
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the essence of conservation?” – highlights in itself the complexity of de ning the
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proposed an interesting analysis of the evolution of the eld of conservation,
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The importance of integrating cultural diversity to conservation re ection was
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of the motivations of the 1994 Nara conference was to address the di culties
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tice intellectual concepts that were not only not clearly de ned but limited to
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by experiences in historic houses and di erent-scale museums in the US. The
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approaches to treatment fostered a continuous re ection from several angles on
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authenticity of furniture (Rabourdin-Au ret, 2010), which incorporated criteria
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as well as recent re ections on the preservation of decorative surfaces and the
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on Authenticity was organized as a direct result of the extreme di culty for
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de ne speci c criteria to evaluate the authenticity of cultural heritage, for the
rst time taking into consideration cultural diversity. Twenty years later, the
topic was revisited speci cally in the Asian context (Wijesuriya & Sweet, 2018),
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authenticity in speci c cultural contexts. Several conferences and publications
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The rst issue with such a term is, in the rst place, to agree on its de nition.
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thentic can be de ned as being authoritative or duly authorized; as being in
accordance with fact, as being true in substance; as being what it professes in
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same piece can either be a fake or a copy; it depends entirely on what it is pre
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speci c. To de ne authentic as original results in limiting authenticity to the
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the di culty for a practicing conservator to develop treatment decisions when
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embrace cultural di erences, not only in terms of conservation approaches, but
also in regards to the very foundation of these di erences: the way we interact
with artifacts, what they mean to us, how they de ne our identities?

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The former thoughts lead to a third angle of re ection: the relationship of conser
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public buildings; they surround us, from earlier times to the present, anywhere
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involved, as well as the conservation policies applicable to speci c situations,
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identi ed stakeholders as well as communities. For instance, the unique legal
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di erent approaches to conservation by exhibiting in an interpretation room a
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back to its original gilded scheme and original upholstery (Allen & Wegwitz,
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decorative surfaces and that attached to preserving the ne arts. We discussed
the example of a church in France where the level of attention given to gura
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cultural properties (Williams & Strahan, 2008) ,Q ZHVWHUQ FXOWXUHV ZH WHQG
to use conservation materials that di er from the ones present on the treated

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di erentiate original materials from various treatment campaigns. Nevertheless,
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ture of cultural artifacts can carry spiritual signi cance, which may lead to the
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a speci c state to tell the story of a given historical context, to the “do as little as
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allow for further study. There is not one right approach; each case is unique and
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Ref
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Allen, Z., & Wegwitz, L. (2014). The two make a pair: di erentiated treatment
RI D SDLU RI JLOGHG VWRROV GLVSOD HG LQ WKH IXUQLWXUH JDOOHU DW WKH
9LFWRULD DQG OEHUW 0XVHXP ,Q * ODERQH (G &RQVHUYLQJ FRQWH[W
5HODWLQJ REMHFW WUHDWPHQW WR FROOHFWLRQV DQG VHWWLQJV 3URFHHGLQJV RI
WKH FRQIHUHQFH KHOG DW WKH :DOODFH &ROOHFWLRQ /RQGRQ E WKH LOGLQJ
DQG HFRUDWLYH 6XUIDFHV URXS RI WKH ,QVWLWXWH RI &RQVHUYDWLRQ
0DUFK /RQGRQ UFKHW SH ERRNV

Au ret, S. (2011). The role of conservation in the preservation of the

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FRQIHUHQFH /LVERQ 6HSWHPEHU 3DULV , 20

Au ret, S., & Beall-Nikolaus, S. (2019). &OHDQLQJ RI :RRGHQ LOGHG

6XUIDFHV UHSRUW IURP DQ H[SHUWV PHHWLQJ RUJDQL]HG E WKH HWW
&RQVHUYDWLRQ ,QVWLWXWH 0DUFK /RV QJHOHV *HWW
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Au ret, S., & Landrey, G. (2014). Seeing more clearly through opaque
surfaces: a review of furniture nishes materials, their use and ethical
FRQVLGHUDWLRQV UHODWHG WR WKHLU SUHVHUYDWLRQ ,Q 0 9DVTXHV LDV (G
Furniture nishes: Past, present and future of transparent wood
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(QJOLVK WUDQVODWLRQ 7KHRU RI UHVWRUDWLRQ 5RPD ,VWLWXWR
centrale per il restauro; Firenze: Nardini.].

Hermens, E., & Fiske, T. (Eds.). (2009). UW FRQVHUYDWLRQ DQG DXWKHQWLFLWLHV

PDWHULDO FRQFHSW FRQWH[W /RQGRQ UFKHW SH 3XEOLFDWLRQV /WG

+ OOLQJ + % D 7KH WHFKQLTXH RI FRQVHUYDWLRQ RQ UHDOPV RI WKHRU DQG

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&& WK
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DUW 3DULV ,QWHUQDWLRQDO RXQFLO RI 0XVHXPV

Larsen, K., E., & Jokilehto, J. et al (Eds.). (1995). 1DUD &RQIHUHQFH RQ

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UNESCO World Heritage Centre: ICOMOS; Agency for Cultural
A airs; ICCROM.

Rabourdin-Au ret, S. (2010). / DXWKHQWLFLWp GX PRELOLHU IUDQoDLV GH O pSRTXH

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GLVFRYHUHG SURMHFW

:LMHVXUL D * & Sweet, J. (Eds.). (2018). 5HYLVLWLQJ DXWKHQWLFLW LQ WKH VLDQ

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https://www.iccrom.org/sites/default/ les/publications/2019-03/
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Williams, J. L., Strahan, D. K., & Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (Eds.).
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