There’s a narrow door set into a passageway of the National Gallery that I must have walked past countless times. Swiped with a security pass, it leads to a warren of corridors and dark staircases. Another door opens and sun floods in through a lantern skylight above the conservation studio. After the cramped backstairs it takes my eyes a moment to adjust. Ahead is Paolo Uccello’s The Battle of San Romano. To my right is the Pollaiuolo brothers’ Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian. Beyond is Parmigianino’s Madonna and Child with Saints. In the next-door studio Cézanne’s Bathers hangs next to Velázquez’s Philip IV of Spain. Paintings that would be separated by centuries in the gallery rooms are here cheek by kingly jowl.
Conservators
