Private Tour of the Department of Textile Conservation at the MET with Janina Poskrobko

Photograph courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Waitlist only.

During the tour of the Textile Conservation Lab with Janina Poskrobko, guests will be able to view two different tapestries, one from European Sculpture & Decorative Arts and the other from the Medieval & The Cloisters collection. They will continue on through the lab seeing various projects underway from multiple curatorial departments. The objects will vary depending on current activities of the lab. Guests will be able to see the microscopes that conservators use when capturing photomicrographs. They will be able to see our wet lab facility (shown above) where large-scale textiles are wet cleaned. The tour will wrap up seeing the dye lab and testing lab where fiber analysis is done.

The Department of Textile Conservation is responsible for preservation, conservation, technical study, and research of the Museum’s collection of approximately 36,000 textiles in twelve curatorial departments. The encyclopedic collection represents a broad range of textiles including tapestries, carpets, embroideries, costumes, and three-dimensional accessories of all periods and cultures. The Department sets guidelines for care, handling, display and storage of the textiles, and has played a key role in the Met’s initiative to create a dedicated facility for Integrated Pest Management (IPM) with a purpose-built freezer and pre- and post-treatment areas.

Integral to the Department’s practice is the systematic study, documentation, and scientific investigation of textiles. As research advances, the Department is steadily building and refining its digital collection-based database. The latest analytical equipment and methodology together with traditional methods are used for studying The Met’s collection and related textiles, materials and techniques. Thirteen professionals with diverse areas of expertise, as well as fellows, interns, and volunteers comprise the department.

Since its founding in 1973, the Department has contributed to the education of many conservators now in professional practice throughout the world. Committed to the training of future conservators through The Met’s Fellowship and Internship programs, the Department also supports externships and collaborations with conservators already working in the field fostering a worldwide network for collegial exchange.

Janina Poskrobko has an M.A. in Preservation and Conservation of Cultural Heritage with a major in Conservation Management, from Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland (1986) and an M.A. in Textile and Costume Conservation from the Museum Studies program at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology (1997). She completed her PhD at Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland in 2019. Her research of cross-cultural, artistic and technical aspects of 16th-18th century Eastern textiles including Persian, Turkish-Armenian and Polish silk sashes has appeared in numerous articles.