According to a profile in The New Yorker (“Letter from Rome: The Renovation”, by Ariel Levy, November 28, 2011), Principessa Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi (the former Rita Jenrette) is writing a thriller titled “Caravaggio’s Treasure”. She says that it is about “a blond art conservator with impossible long legs who is totally unaware of her good looks which make women hate her. She is sent to Rome where she meets a handsome prince.” One wonders if the conservator will have time to do any conservation work once she meets her prince. More seriously, one wonders whether such images of conservators do much to promote the seriousness of our work.
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Conservator, like, say, ballerina or opera singer, seems to be a profession chosen in Romance literature simply for the fact that it allows the author to set scenes in fancy fine arts museums. It makes for a lovely backdrop.
I seldom run into art conservators in the books or movies I watch, but I did enjoy the profession’s portrayal in the animated Japanese movie, ‘The Girl Who Leaped Through Time.’ Oh, sure, the conservator works alone in a sumptuously stocked, high-tech conservation lab–but at least the care and patience needed for in-painting is shown. And the fact that the lab made it into the movie at all–as opposed to some Indiana Jones-type dusty office–was pretty, well, neat as well.