The French context
In France, 10 years ago, the responsibility of the Mural painting’s conservation has been given to the architects in charge of the Historic monuments. The consequences of this change for the conservators of mural paintings was very important.
Mural paintings became a part of a largest project which is the conservation of monuments. Mural painting is not a object in itself but only the surface of an other object: the monument.
And in the other hand the French law determinate precisely the procedure for the conservation work in historic monuments.
1) A “Declaration of intention” : it’s an administrative action for the definition of the program of conservation.
2) A “Preliminary study” : it’s a general study to determinate different phases and evaluate howmuch money is needed.
3) An “Architectural and technical project” (PAT) which determinate in details every operation, prepare legal contract and the procedure to choose enterprises.
Generally we work in this 3 steps. This present example is clearly made to prepare the project of conservation but it’s not a complete documentation on a work site.