The purchase of environmental monitoring equipment and a preservation assessment of the Kentucky Museum’s collection of approximately 25,000 objects, which together tell the history of the state through items ranging from weapons and armaments, clothing and textiles, paintings, prints, drawings, tools, household furnishings, and personal artifacts. Examples from the collection include quilts from the American quilt revival of the 1930-50s, 7,000 items of state political memorabilia from 1830 to the present, Shaker furniture, and several hundred paintings of Kentucky portraits and landscapes.
After nearly 25 years of progress and change at the Kentucky Museum (KM), this application seeks funding for a conservation assessment and review of environmental conditions in collection and exhibition areas that will result in the establishment of an environmental monitoring program and improve the preservation of a collection of more than 25,000 three-dimensional historical artifacts that documents the history of Kentucky from the early 1800s to the present day. This assessment will update a 1992 Conservation Assessment Program report written by the same consulting conservator and will include additional time to focus on the environmental conditions at the museum facilities.