“Cherry Blossoms on the Bank of the Sumido River” by Ando Hiroshige from the permanent collection of the Nichols House Museum.
The Nichols House Museum, located at 55 Mount Vernon St. on Beacon Hill, was recently awarded a grant for $27,377 by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), a federal agency, to undertake conservation treatment of the 42 prints in its permanent collection.
The museum will work with the Northeast Document Conservation Center, a nationally- recognized, full-service paper conservation laboratory located in Andover. The year-long project will include a special exhibit highlighting the prints and their conservation treatment which will be open to the public. The prints represent a significant aspect of the Nichols House’s art, comprising 70 percent of the fine art collection owned by the Nichols family. The conservation project will help the NHM fulfill its mission to preserve and interpret the history of the Nichols family and their society on Boston’s historic Beacon Hill.
For the 2013-2014 award cycle, the Institute of Museum and Library Services received 597 applications requesting funding. Of these, 170 projects were selected to receive funding. IMLS’s peer reviewers evaluated all eligible and complete grant applications, assessing the merit of each proposal and its fit with the goals of the grant program and project category.
This is the fifth IMLS grant the Nichols House has received in the past 10 years. Other projects funded include the installation of ultraviolet light filtering panels on all windows of the Nichols House; cataloguing and digitally photographing the museum’s permanent collection; conservation treatment of the wooden furnishings, and the development of an Interpretation Plan.
The Nichols House staff will work closely with the Collection Committee of the museum to complete the project scheduled to begin in early November.