Extract of the ICON website : Ceramics & Glass Group: Student Lunchtime Lectures (icon.org.uk)

Pharmaceutical glass containers in the Swiss National Museum: Study and intervention protocol for the consolidation of cold painted inscription
Annick Simon
Haute École Arc, Switzerland

Annick Simon is a student in the final year of her Master’s degree in Conservation-restoration of archaeological, historical and ethnographic objects at Haute Ecole Arc from Neuchâtel. Her master thesis concerns a set of 44 pharmaceutical glasses dating from the 18th to the 19th century, currently kept in the Swiss National Museum. These bottles used to contain different substances, organic or inorganic. Oil-painted labels indicate what they used to contain. Currently, these objects are in a poor state of preservation. The advanced degradation of the glass and of the pictorial layer has led to the loss of adhesion and important losses. The objective of her work is to find a conservation-restoration treatment to conserve the paint on the glass. Various adhesives and methods of application will be tested, in order to create a protocol of intervention for the whole collection.