In 1998 teams of museum conservators, curators, and other specialists helped move the flag from its home in the Museum's Flag Hall into a new conservation laboratory.

It took museum conservators more than six years to sort, catalog and clean the 3,600 pieces gleaned from the two fused prototypes.

For museum conservators, moth and beetle larvae pose a more serious threat.

Shortly after the attack, museum conservators removed the painting and within an hour had cleaned it before the white paint was dry, leaving the artwork apparently undamaged.

When storing silver, museum conservators wrap silver in sulfur-free tissue paper and store in a tight sealed polyethylene bag.

"This is great stuff," Mr. Peterson, the museum conservator, said.

Before even cleaning a piece that you think might be valuable, have it examined by an appraiser, a museum conservator or a similar expert.

Ornamentalism is the term for this show of some 40 objects so exquisite that they might have been conceived with a modern museum conservator's soft white cotton gloves in mind.

Conditions similar to this in other museums across the continent have spurred a new, international effort to train a corps of African museum conservators.

After the attack, museum conservators removed the painting and had cleaned it before the paint even dried - within an hour.