Award for Saving a Masterpiece

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The Fitzwilliam Museum are proud to announce that we have won the Restoration and Conservation section of the Museums and Heritage Awards 2017, for the 10-year research project on one of the founding Renaissance masterpieces in the collection; Sebastiano de Piombo's (1485–1547) 'Adoration of the Shepherds' c.1510.

The restoration at the Fitzwilliam’s painting conservation department, the Hamilton Kerr Institute, enabled the masterpiece to go on show at the museum for the first time in 70 years. The project completed in time to return the picture to the galleries in celebration of the Museum’s 200th birthday in 2016.

The Judges said, 'The award goes to a project which represents restoration at its very best – painstaking in its research and meticulous in its care attention, resulting in the rescue of a masterpiece'.