from The Wall Street Journal

Scattered around Yuri Yanchyshyn's studio in Long Island City, N.Y., are high-powered microscopes, hundreds of wood samples and an extraordinary array of tools and application materials ... One of his most challenging projects, the 63-year-old Detroit native says, was a 1930s Frederick Kiesler dresser owned by a private collector. "It had been improperly restored with an incorrect veneer." This meant he had to identify the right veneer and then match the degraded original coating. Working with two of his staff, it took two months to restore the piece ... "Yuri has an intuition of how far to go with restoring," says Horace "Woody" Brock, an economist and avid collector of fine arts, whose collection of English Regency furniture and decorative arts is now part of Boston's Museum of Fine Arts.

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The Conservation of an Ivory Statue

Nearly every prominent collection of decorative art objects includes items made of materials that are now considered rare or are regulated by government agencies. Ivory is perhaps foremost among these materials. It has been favored by craftsmen for centuries. Famous examples include the Venus of Schelklingen, believed to be more than 35,000 years old, and carved from mammoth ivory, and the Lewis Chessmen, dating from the twelfth century.

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