Mural conservation completed in the U.S. Custom House in Baltimore

Left to right: Kerry Rose (GSA), Arthur Page (Page Conservation) and Donna Andrews (GSA).

In late 2022, Page Conservation, Inc. completed major conservation of Francis Davis Millet’s mural series “The Evolution of Navigation” (created in 1907) in the Call Room of the U.S. Custom House in Baltimore, Maryland.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Baltimore flourished as one of the nation's major commercial ports. In 1900, the firm Hornblower and Marshall won the bid to design Baltimore's third custom house. The building's cornerstone was laid in June 1903 and despite suffering major damage in a wide-spread fire in 1904, the building was completed and occupied in 1907. From the time of its completion, the Custom House was praised as a triumph of both design and workmanship. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.

Scaffolding was installed during the conservation process.

Last fully treated in the 1970s, Millet’s murals decorate the ceiling, coves, cornices and walls of the Call Room. The murals extend across the ceiling and cove to depict the history of maritime navigation. The central ceiling panel

Close-up of one of the completed coves.

measures 68 by 30 feet, and the series includes more than 125 different ships and vessels, from ancient Egyptian ships to J.P. Morgan’s yacht, the Corsair.

Millet died just a few years after completing these murals, perishing along with over 1,500 others in the sinking of the Titanic in 1912.

Over the past several years, Page Conservation worked incrementally to conserve the entire Call Room mural series. Treatment included surface cleaning, correcting damage from water intrusion, inpainting and re-adhering separated canvas.

This final treatment phase took over a year to complete as Page worked their way around the room on multi-level scaffolding. GSA managed the project using funding set aside from GSA's Center for Fine Arts for preparing and implementing expensed minor repair and alteration programs for existing federal buildings.