The National Centre for Research and Restoration in French Museums (C2RMF, Centre de recherche et de restauration des musées de France) is the national
research centre in
France responsible for the
documentation,
conservation and restoration of the items held in the collections of more than 1,200
museums across France.
History
The centre was established in 1998 by an arrêté (administrative decision) issued by
Catherine Trautmann, the then
Minister of Culture and Communications, which was gazetted in the Journal Officiel on December 30.[1] It was created by merging the functions and facilities of two other research bodies, the
Laboratoire de recherche des musées de France (LRMF, Research Laboratory of the Museums of France) and the
Service de restauration des musées de France (SRMF, Restoration Service of the Museums of France) and it is organized in 4 departments. Today the center is affiliated to the
CNRS with the label UMR-171.
The C2RMF's key activities focus on the study of works of art at both a national and regional level. It undertakes investigations prior to any acquisition. Equipped with world-class experimental facilities that are constantly being improved, like the
particle acceleratorAGLAE, the C2RMF focuses its research on several key areas: the physical and chemical characteristics of materials, the ageing of materials, database management, image analysis, digitisation and 3D modelling. The C2RMF is experienced in the use of scientific techniques on art works. They also have knowledge and experience of the capture of 3D data from many different types of artefact. The latest research has concerned the multispectral imaging of paintings,[3] ontologies and the semantic web and the 3D modelling of objects and paintings.[4] Furthermore, it has launched an open source database management system that provides multilingual access (17 languages) to specialised vocabularies for the cultural museum sector and a semantic interface to browse the results.[citation needed]
C2RMF also carries out scientific studies and data recording for these collections, and is active both nationally and internationally in the field of
cultural heritage conservation and analysis. The C2RMF is involved in the development of technologies and scientific procedures employed in the preservation of art works and artefacts, both on its own and in partnership with other museums and research institutions across the globe.[5]
Since the early 1930s, over 174,000 paintings and 34,000 objects have been individually studied or restored by the C2RMF, and its predecessor organisations LRMF and SRMF.[6]
M. Menu (ed.), Leonardo's Technical Practice: Paintings, Drawings and Influence, Paris, 2014.
D. Bourgarit, J. Basset, F. G. Bewer, G. Bresc-Bautier, Ph. Malgouyres et G. Scherf (eds.), French Bronze Sculpture 16th-18th Century, Londres, 2014.
I. Biron, F. Alloteau, P. Lehuédé, O. Majérus, D. Caurant, Glass Atmospheric Alteration, Cultural Heritage, Industrial and Nuclear Glass, Paris, 2019.
Sources
Boutaine, Jean Louis (2006). "The modern museum". In David Bradley; Dudley Creagh (eds.). Physical Techniques in the Study of Art, Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, vol. 1. Amsterdam:
Elsevier. pp. 1–40.
ISBN0-444-52131-3.
OCLC76714223.
Calligaro, Thomas; Jean-Claude Dran; M. Klein (May 2003). "Application of photo-detection to art and archaeology at the C2RMF". Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. 77 (1–4): 66–70.
Bibcode:
2003NIMPA.504..213C.
doi:
10.1016/S0168-9002(03)00793-9.
Colantoni, Philippe; Denis Pitzalis; Ruven Pillay; Geneviève Aitken (2007). D. Arnold; F. Niccolucci; A. Chalmers (eds.). GPU Spectral Viewer: Analysing Paintings from a Colorimetric Perspective. VAST07: The 8th International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Intelligent Cultural Heritage: Proceedings. Brighton, UK:
Eurographics Association.
EU-ARTECH (2004).
"AGLAE". Transnational Access: General Information. Access, Research and Technology for the conservation of the European Cultural Heritage (Eu-ARTECH). Archived from
the original on 2007-11-16. Retrieved 2008-04-27.
Lahanier, Christian (2004). "Information technologies applied to scientific examination of museum collections". In Marco Martini; Mario Milazzo; Mario Piacentini (eds.). Physics Methods in Archaeometry: Proceedings of the International School of Physics "Enrico Fermi", Varenna on Lake Como, Villa Monastero, 17–27 June 2003. Amsterdam:
IOS Press,
Società Italiana di Fisica. pp. 155–178.
ISBN1-58603-424-3.
OCLC56320182.
Lövestam, N.E. Göran; Thomas Calligaro; Alain Duval; Joseph Salomon (May 1993). "The AGLAE scanning nuclear microprobe setup". Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B. 77 (1–4): 66–70.
Bibcode:
1993NIMPB..77...66L.
doi:
10.1016/0168-583X(93)95526-B.
Maurus, Véronique (2006). La vie secrète du Louvre (in French). Jean-Christophe Ballot (photo illus.). Brussels: Renaissance Du Livre, in association with
Le Monde.
ISBN2-87415-615-9.
OCLC69733461.
Menu, Michel; Thomas Calligaro; Joseph Salomon;
Georges Amsel; Jean Moulin (January 1990). "The dedicated accelerator-based IBA facility AGLAE at the Louvre". Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B. 45 (1–4): 610–614.
Bibcode:
1990NIMPB..45..610M.
doi:
10.1016/0168-583X(90)90910-M.
Naffah, Christiane (2007).
Science applied to museum collections(PDF). The Protection of Cultural Heritage from Air Pollution: The need for effective local policy, maintenance and conservation strategies. 2nd joint workshop (Paris-Louvre: 15–16 March 2007). Stockholm: EU Project CULT-STRAT and ICP Materials Task Force of the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution.
EU contract no. SSPI-CT-2004-501609. Archived from
the original(
PDF of conference presentation) on 3 October 2011. Retrieved 2008-04-23.
Pitzalis, Denis; Christian Lahanier; Geneviève Aitken; Ruven Pillay; Karina Rodriguez-Echavarria; David B. Arnold (2007). José Braz; Pere-Pau Vàzquez; Joao Madeiras Pereira (eds.). 3D techniques to create interactive virtual museums: The state of the art in the epoch noe. GRAPP 2007, Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and Applications. Barcelona:
INSTICC - Institute for Systems and Technologies of Information, Control and Communication.