Art Worth the Risk

Hans Memling’s altarpiece The Last Judgement has survived for more than 550 years—through theft and war—but its most remarkable quality may be how little of that shows.

The triptych, approximately seven feet high and ten feet wide when open, dramatically depicts Judgment Day as described in the Bible, when Jesus Christ divides the saved from the damned and assigns each their eternal fate. Rendered in tempera and oil paints, the work’s many details are luminous and layered. At its center, Christ, acting as judge, sits on a rainbow with his feet resting on a golden orb that symbolizes the universe. Beneath him, the Archangel Michael weighs the just against the sinners. On the left panel is a scene at the heavenly gates; on the right, bodies scorch in hellfire.

Memling, a leading Netherlandish artist, created The Last Judgement between 1467 and 1473. It was commissioned for a chapel near Florence, but the painting never arrived and was likely never seen by its patron: it was stolen en route. The ship carrying the work was captured by a privateer, or legalized pirate, from Gdańsk, Poland, and the triptych was eventually placed in the city’s St. Mary’s Church, where it remained for centuries. This is one of the earliest documented art heists in history.

During the Napoleonic Wars, the painting was taken to the Louvre in Paris, then returned to Gdańsk after Napoleon’s defeat. In World War II, it was evacuated from the city and seized by the Soviets, then returned to Poland—once more—a decade later. It has remained there ever since.

The Last Judgement is considered one of the most outstanding examples of European art held in a Polish collection. It’s currently housed in the National Museum in Gdańsk (Muzeum Narodowe w Gdańsku [MNG]), a former Gothic monastery completed in the early 16th century. Surrounded by walls nearly as old as the triptych itself, the work seems like it has never been anywhere else.

A close-up look

Twelve years ago, the MNG considered lending the object for an exhibition in Rome. This prompted an investigation into whether it was safe for the artwork to travel.

Michał Łukomski, physicist, senior scientist, and head of preventive conservation research at the Getty Conservation Institute, was on the team that evaluated the painting’s condition and provided data to the MNG so colleagues there could make an informed decision on whether to ship the piece. Also on the team were experts from the MNG, the Jerzy Haber Institute of Catalysis and Surface Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and the Laboratory of Analysis and Non-Destructive Investigation of Heritage Objects of the National Museum in Kraków.

The team used a variety of imaging tools to examine the painting and assess its condition. Photographs taken in visible lighting and under ultraviolet light helped reveal numerous surface details, while thermography, which records temperature changes on a surface, and speckle interferometry, a technique that detects submicrometer deformations, made it possible to identify potential separation between layers in the material. UV fluorescence, infrared reflectography, and X‑rays allowed conservators to understand how the work was executed.

The specialists ultimately concluded that the triptych’s condition was, as Łukomski puts it, “amazingly good.” The wooden panels were well joined, the glue bonds were secure, and no active lifting was detected in the base or paint layers.

It was stable, but there was risk.

“The main problem we discussed was maintaining stable temperature and humidity conditions,” Łukomski says. The painting’s display case was functioning just well enough to stabilize humidity fluctuations in the MNG’s historic building.

The main risk, though, was transporting the piece: accidents could happen during deinstallation and reinstallation and on its trip in between. The MNG deemed that, although the artwork was in good condition, the risk of moving it was too great for such a vulnerable, valuable, and complex object. Ultimately, it did not travel.

Reviewing the painting

In 2025, Łukomski, along with the Jerzy Haber Institute, revisited the painting. The MNG had requested a new evaluation; the display case—now more than 20 years old—was showing signs of aging and no longer sealed properly. It would have to be replaced.

The team would first need to identify any environmental factors that could put the painting at risk of deterioration. They would also need to determine how to mitigate those risks and propose a better display solution. That meant understanding the building’s own conditions, how the new case would be constructed, and exactly where it would be placed.

From their earlier study, the team already had precise records of the painting’s minute irregularities. Repeating their original analyses would reveal what, if anything, had changed in the work’s condition and whether the aging display case was still effective.

During their analysis, the Cultural Heritage Research group of the Jerzy Haber Institute, led by Łukasz Bratasz, introduced new methods, including a 3D digital microscope scanner. This technology enabled the researchers to document the painting's entire surface at 90 times magnification and to closely examine selected areas at up to 2,500 times magnification. Working alongside the MNG’s conservators, they narrowed down areas of concern: sections that warranted an even closer look.

The researchers found that the painting remained exceptionally well preserved. Any changes detected were minimal. The case had done an admirable job protecting the work from humidity fluctuations without any mechanical climate control, or HVAC, system. With no mechanics to break down or consume energy, the case was reliable and sustainable. Now the MNG would need to design a replacement that could continue to do the same task.

But a major risk still loomed. The object’s scale and weight, even without a case, already made it exceptionally difficult to transport. The altarpiece comprises three large panels, and the wings would need to be dismounted before it could travel. In the event of an emergency requiring immediate evacuation, could the painting be removed quickly enough to avoid damage? The difficulty of transporting it was a concern 12 years ago, and now how it would move within a new case had to be considered.

The painting was stable, but the risk of a sudden, abnormal event in its environment, like a fire, remained very real: the historic building—with its many corners and staircases—doesn’t have easy escape routes, so the harm would come not necessarily from the flames themselves but from the physical strain imposed on the altarpiece during an emergency evacuation.

The researchers considered several options for housing and protecting the painting: a large box‑style case that would seal around the entire triptych, or a smaller case that would fit inside the frame and sit close to the surface of the object. “The second solution was popular because it allows people to come very close, and historians value the ability to look very closely,” Łukomski says. “But the problem is that the weight of the glass is huge, and it’s difficult to imagine how to move the object, which would then suddenly weigh three times more.”

The case had to provide stability, be visually appealing, and remain relatively easy to mount and remove. How do conservation professionals weigh these kind of demands against each other and arrive at decisions?

Thinking outside the box

To share their research with other professionals, the Conservation Institute, MNG, and Jerzy Haber Institute held a workshop at the MNG last fall. Participants—conservators, curators, heritage scientists, and students—had the chance to see the 3D digital microscope and speckle interferometer in action on The Last Judgement and to work through the risk assessment process firsthand, using fire statistics and emergency scenarios to understand the stakes. One method the attendees learned about was the ABC Method.

Developed by the Canadian Conservation Institute and the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property, the ABC Method is a step‑by‑step approach for assessing risk in cultural heritage preservation. The process begins by establishing goals and background context, then identifying risks. Each risk is examined for how likely it is to occur, how severe its impact could be, and how much loss might be expected over time.

For example, when considering the risk of fire, the likelihood of it happening may be low, but the consequences would be enormous if it did occur. By contrast, fluctuating humidity is a constant—something the painting experiences all the time—but the potential damage from each fluctuation is relatively small.

Risk analysis gives conservators a framework for making informed decisions. It’s an approach also used in fields such as healthcare, where the goal is to preserve life. In this context, the same principles help preserve irreplaceable artworks.

Once the risks have been analyzed, the next step is to prioritize them based on their importance, as well as the organization’s resources and values. With limited means, conservation professionals must be pragmatic. A museum may not have extensive resources, so they need to be sure they are directing what they have toward the best solution for the object in question.

In some situations, the safest response to fire risk is to move the object to a different gallery or storage, where the risk is smaller. But in the case of Memling’s triptych, a different strategy was needed.

“Its presence in the monastery, now a museum, is deeply meaningful,” says Cátia Viegas Wesołowska, head of conservation at the MNG. “It allows the triptych to be experienced in a setting that still resonates with its original function and atmosphere, which it never ‘experienced,’ since the triptych never reached its original destination.”

Making the impossible, possible

As in life, there is rarely one perfect solution to a problem; there are often many possible paths forward, and there is always some degree of risk. In this instance, everyone agreed that it was worth the risk to keep the painting in the monastery. And after all, the building is part of the artwork’s story.

“It might seem like it’s absolutely impossible [to keep the painting there], but you can do a lot to make it possible,” Łukomski says.

According to Viegas Wesołowska, thanks to collaboration between international partners such as the Conservation Institute, the MNG now has a strategy in place to safeguard the triptych in an emergency. From environmental monitoring to evacuation planning, each step is designed to ensure that, in a crisis, conservators can respond quickly and effectively to minimize risk to the artwork.

“What is especially exciting is that, even though the triptych has been thoroughly studied in the past, we are still able to discover more,” Viegas Wesołowska says. “This is not only due to the valuable time we have had this year to examine the painting closely, but also because of the continued advancement of analytical methods. It is this shared process of discovery that makes the work so rewarding, and [we are] very much looking forward to sharing these findings with the public once the work is completed.”

Conservation work on the triptych is ongoing, with analyses and interventions being carried out in the gallery itself, allowing visitors to observe the careful processes behind preserving art. The methodology Getty and partners used to support the MNG, as well as pending decisions related to the display case, will be presented at an upcoming international symposium for broader discussion among conservation professionals. A detailed report is also forthcoming.

“We try to meet people where they need help and provide guidelines for partners in the future to learn from,” Łukomski says. “This gives us an opportunity to learn from them too.”

Working with uncertainty

Getty lends its expertise to help partner institutions better understand the conservation options for their works, but conservation science, like all scientific fields, does not always arrive at neat solutions. Łukomski is used to working with unknowns. He completed his doctoral training in experimental physics, molecular spectroscopy, and plasma physics. As a postdoc, he found himself working in the cultural heritage sector almost incidentally. His first assignment was to study a panel painting: his supervisor wanted to know at what humidity level it would begin to crack. Łukomski was confident he could find the answer with a universal testing machine, a few samples, and a couple months of work.

“I’ve been working more than 20 years now in this field, and it’s an impossible problem to solve since there are so many variables,” he says. “For me, the important thing is that although we cannot answer all the questions—and there are, and always will be, gaps in our knowledge—we still need to make well-informed decisions and undertake actions based on scientific knowledge and experience. Because lack of decision is also, practically speaking, a kind of decision with consequences.”

This is why researchers keep returning to paintings like The Last Judgement, whose remarkable story is still being written.