Műtárgyvédelem, 2005 (Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum)

Összefoglalók

work, that is practical, theory and examination work, undertaken in the Museum’s conservation workshops each month. The course lasted four years, plus a half a year in which to complete the final practical diploma project. In 1991 this was extended to five years. Options for specializing, that had first been introduced in 1982, were also widened to five specialisms. The total studying requirement has grown steadily, to the point that, including compulsory excavation and artists’ colony practice introduced in 1982, and facultative sessions and museum visiting (linked into the art history syllabus) brought in more recently, it now stands at around three times the original number of hours. Despite this the course continues in its original principle of being correspondence based, and, since the demise in 1991 of the Central Museum Directorate, has been run jointly by the Institute of Conservation of the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts and the Hungarian National Museum. It is thought that the object conservator's M.A. degree course is the only one in Hungary to be correspondence based.

The author of this article has a good deal of personal experience of the foregoing. She has been through every one of the stages of the correspondence based degree course elaborated above - from the course in basic restoration skills right up to the final M.A. degree with specialism in wood and furniture restoring, and including a two-years advanced metal restoration course along the way.

Furthermore, she was lecturer of the Ojectconservation Faculty and since 2001 she has been its head. With this wealth of experience it is her firm belief that the work of object conservators will only receive tehe recognation it deserve - among museologists as well as within the profession itself - if the university degree course will be transformed from part time into a tarditional fulltime course. If bachelor degree would be introduced besides the master degree currently offered by the Hungarian University of Fine Arts, than the bachelor degree could stand in for all the various external - intermediate and higher level - courses.

It would also be necessary to invest in new facilities and equipment. The fittings and tools that date from the foundation of the degree course in 1974, and which at that time were considered modern, are now badly in need of renewal. Some limited replacement has been carried over the last three years, thanks in no small part to grants from the Museums Department of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, but the overall standard of the Department’s facilities is still substantially below that of comparable institutions in Western Europe.

Notwithstanding these difficulties ten to twelve object conservators qualify through the Department each year (specializing in wooden objects and furniture, metal and goldsmith, paper and leather, silicate, and textile and leather conservation). Students and teachers alike participate in international projects, and the latter have received invitations to lecture abroad. Students’ final year diploma work is put on public display (along with posters charting the progress of the particular conservation job) in the Hungarian National Museum’s annual „Preserved Art Treasures” exhibition. This also features the work of graduating students who have been studying the restoration of paintings and sculpture. There is an accompanying catalogue in both Hungarian and English.

One of the purposes in placing examples of final year diploma work of both art- and object conservators together in one exhibition is to show that the conser196