A real scourge attacked from 2014 some 3000 works from the musée des Beaux-Arts of Brest. This mycelium, a fungus destructive of paintings, which has required treatment with fungicides designed to eradicate it in order to “save from destruction a priceless collection” in the words of Sophie Lessard, the director of the museum. Today, after a tricky work, led by no less than eight conservators of art, the cultural institution breton was able to reopen its doors to the public on January 21.

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The proliferation of the mycelium had been discovered in the museum’s reserves, as of 2014. An in-depth treatment of the restoration and renovation of these local storages are too wet has been decided. Eight conservators, specialists in graphic arts, have worked in two time.

As explained in one of the fas, Marine Letouzey, in a news report posted below in the video, a first phase has been to dust off the tables of the “spores very volatile of mushrooms”. And then a fungicide treatment or “fungistatic”, delicate, destined to eradicate the mycelium was operated by hand, brush and brush, on each work. The total cost of this restoration, which has affected some five hundred works, represents an investment of 100,000 euros.

In parallel, the rehabilitation and renovation of the museum’s reserves of Brest have been implemented at a cost of 500,000 euros. This time, what are the necessary conditions of conservation of the museum’s collection that were the subject of this work. Today, the temperature, the ventilation and the humidity of the place are suitable. But for Sophie Lessard, now alerted to the danger, “the vigilance will be daily in order to ensure the survival of our great collection.”

Report on the eradication of the “mushroom” of the museum of Fine Arts of Brest