Rohm and Haas and the Conservation of Antiquities

What do the Sistine Chapel, the Maya tombs of Honduras, the water lily paintings of Claude Monet and a Tang Dynasty terracotta horse all have in common?  They are all protected by Rohm and Haas chemistry.

About fifty years ago, scientists associated with the restoration of paintings began looking for ways to protect and conserve works of art from some of the major artists in the western world.  In the course of their work, they began testing Rohm and Haas’ Paraloid™ products, solvent-based acrylic products used as additives in many commercial paints. After rigorous testing, they found that these products lasted longer than any competitive products, offered greater protection and could be removed with little or no damage.

Over the course of time, other products such as PRIMAL™/RHOPLEX™ and ACRYSOL™ products have been tested and approved by experts from museums such as The Louvre Museum in Paris, The Uffizi Gallery in Florence, The Getty Museum of Art in California, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and many others.  At the same time, the use of these products has expanded to include famous buildings such as the Parthenon in Greece, the Hagia Sofia in Turkey, the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City and Windsor Castle in England. 

Virginia Greene, Senior Conservator at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in a recent interview with Rohm and Haas explained, “When I started in conservation, the only acrylic that I used on a regular basis was Plexiglas.  Now we use a half a dozen of them frequently and one of them, PARALOID™ B-72, literally on a daily basis.  It is one of the most versatile materials we have available.  It’s used as an adhesive, a consolidant, and a filler, both with bulking agents and as cast films for lost compensation in glass.”
 
A recent letter from Dr. Abla Abd el Salam General Director of Conservation of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo confirmed a long suspected but hard to prove rumor: Rohm and Haas products were used to protect the tomb and objects in the tomb of Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamen. In the letter, el Salam states that products such as PARALOID™ B-72, PARALOID™ B-48N, ACRYSOL™ and PRIMAL™/RHOPLEX™ products “are used on a regular basis by conservators at major museums throughout the world to preserve and restore priceless and irreplaceable artifacts.”

At the same time, conservators with the World Monument Fund, one of the world’s largest private conservation groups, informed Rohm and Haas that their materials are also being used as a barrier coating on the conserved faux bamboo-painted woodwork the 1771 Emperor's Lodge of Retirement in the Forbidden City in Beijing China.  The experts also revealed that our products have been used in many other instances inside the Forbidden City, once home to China’s emperors and now the largest museum in that country.    

For half a century, Rohm and Haas has maintained an uninterrupted relationship with these scientists and conservators around the world and has been recognized as one of the most important providers of technology for the preservation of Art, Architecture and Archeology. Rohm and Haas products have consistently been proven effective and after more than 50 years of testing, have become the standard among these experts.

If you have any questions regarding Rohm and Haas products used in art, architecture or archeology, let us know by sending an email to: cferrigno@rohmhaas.com.