{"id":1282,"date":"2016-12-01T15:11:03","date_gmt":"2016-12-01T15:11:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjhblog.cjh.org\/index.php\/2016\/12\/01\/chasing-history-the-allure-of-the-object-3\/"},"modified":"2016-12-01T15:11:03","modified_gmt":"2016-12-01T15:11:03","slug":"chasing-history-the-allure-of-the-object-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/2016\/12\/01\/chasing-history-the-allure-of-the-object-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Chasing history: the allure of the object"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>By Dong Eun Kim, Head Conservator<\/b><\/h2>\n<h2><b>Post 1<\/b><\/h2>\n<p>What is it that attracts us to certain objects? What makes<br \/>\none artifact more compelling than another? These answers can often be obvious,<br \/>\nbut occasionally an object can take us on a winding journey before it reveals<br \/>\nthe secret to its appeal. This was our experience with the Leo Baeck<br \/>\nInstitute\u2019s Metz Jewish Community Collection.<\/p>\n<p>As a conservation lab serving the collections of five<br \/>\nseparate organizations, the Werner J. and Gisella Levi Cahnman<br \/>\nConservation Laboratory sees a diverse range of objects \u2013 some filled with sentimental significance,<br \/>\nothers have relevance to the history of art, still others specific to the<br \/>\nhistory of a people. Occasionally an object is just an aesthetic or intellectual<br \/>\ncuriosity.<\/p>\n<p>In theory, these elements are largely immaterial to the<br \/>\nconservator. Our role is only to<br \/>\npreserve and protect the object so that it may continue to provide value into<br \/>\nthe future. In practice,<br \/>\nhowever, we often must learn the entire story of an object, in order to know<br \/>\nbest how to treat it. This can lead to some fascinating exploration, and in the<br \/>\ncase of this collection, the understanding that we are conserving something<br \/>\nparticularly important, culturally and historically.<\/p>\n<p>When we first received the Metz Community Collection, it<br \/>\nappeared to be a somewhat unremarkable collection of documents, detailing some<br \/>\nsmall element of life in the period.<\/p>\n<p>The collection consisted of 3 folders containing 200-plus<br \/>\nscraps of 18<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0century writings, hand-written in French and Hebrew,<br \/>\nthat were difficult to read.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"tmblr-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/78.media.tumblr.com\/089d8dbcfab05d031a0b742fcc304c05\/tumblr_inline_ohii3l3xS31r0yq0k_540.jpg\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/figure>\n<blockquote>\n<p><i>Metz Jewish Community Collection<\/i><i>,<\/i><i><br \/>\n1700-1799.<\/i><i> \u00a0<\/i><i>Leo<br \/>\nBaeck Institute Archives<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>Photo credit: Shayna Marchese<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>There was something captivating in these artifacts that none<br \/>\nof us could quite identify, yet we all felt it. We knew there was something<br \/>\nspecial here, and in our pursuit of a strategy for proper conservation, we were<br \/>\nabout to wander through a series of interesting but ultimately fruitless paths<br \/>\nbefore finding the answer to a compelling mystery. <\/p>\n<p>Why are we so drawn to certain objects? A conservator\u2019s<br \/>\nprivileged role often insists that we find the answer. In an effort to share a window<br \/>\ninto that role, this series of blog posts will illustrate the journey we\u2019ve<br \/>\ntaken in the process of investigating these artifacts, and what makes them so<br \/>\nimportant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Dong Eun Kim, Head Conservator Post 1 What is it that attracts us to certain objects? What makes one artifact more compelling than another? These answers can often be obvious, but occasionally an object can take us on a winding journey before it reveals the secret to its appeal. This was our experience with the Leo Baeck Institute\u2019s Metz Jewish Community Collection. As&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[176,137,177],"class_list":["post-1282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-post","tag-conservation","tag-leo-baeck-institute-collections","tag-metz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1282\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}