ALEXANDRA BALDWIN

Email: alexandra.baldwin@ashmus.ox.ac.uk

Biography

Alexandra Baldwin is Conservation Manager, Objects in the Ashmolean Museum’s Conservation Department. Responsibilities include the conservation of objects from within the museum’s collections for loans, exhibitions, and storage, and management of the object conservation team and the co-ordination of the objects conservation lab.

Alexandra has an undergraduate degree in Archaeology and History of Art from University of Bristol and an MSc in the Principles of Conservation and an MSc in Conservation for Archaeology and Museums from the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. Alexandra has been an accredited member of the Institute of Conservation (ICON) since 2008.

Between 2002 and 2017 she was employed at the British Museum, as a Museum Assistant in the Department of Asia, and as Project Conservator for the conservation of Japanese Kofun period artefacts, becoming a permanent member of conservation staff in 2004. During her time at the British Museum Alexandra contributed to large-scale gallery and exhibition projects including the refurbishment of the Medieval, Islamic and Asian galleries, major exhibitions such as ‘Hadrian’ and ‘Vikings’, as well as working on objects for loans and display and contributing to the cleaning of coin hoards for the Treasure Act. She has worked on a wide range of historical and archaeological inorganic artefacts and as on-site conservator at excavations in Albania, Italy and the UK. Major research projects included Iron Age cauldrons from Chiseldon in Wiltshire, material from the Sutton Hoo excavations, the use of lasers in conservation, conservation of archaeological lead artefacts, and material from the excavations at Ur. 

Alexandra joined the Ashmolean in 2017 initially to conserve items from the Watlington Hoard of Anglo-Saxon coins and hack-silver before being appointed to her current role in 2018.

Publications

Baldwin, A. and Lobaton, N. 2019 Cleaning the dishes: Conserving objects for ‘Last Supper at Pompeii’ Ashmolean Magazine 77

Baldwin, A. and Ward, S.  2018 Cast in a new light – Conserving Antinous Ashmolean Magazine 76

Baldwin, A. and Joy, J. 2017 A Celtic Feast: the Iron-Age cauldrons from Chiseldon, Wiltshire. British Museum Press.

Pereira-Pardo, Lucía & Korenberg, Capucine & Naidorf, Saray & Baldwin, Alexandra & Camurcuoğlu, Duygu. (2017). Investigating the use of the Er:YAG laser for the conservation of inorganic archaeological artefacts. ICOM Triennial meeting. Copenhagen 2017

Baldwin, A. et al. 2015. Shield Construction. In Fern, C.J.R. Before Sutton Hoo. East Anglian Archaeology 155 pp118-119  

Baldwin, A., Hood, J. and Joy, J. 2013. The Cauldrons from Chiseldon. British Archaeology 128. Pp36-41.   

Hayley Bullock, Alexandra Baldwin, Jamie Hood, Caroline Cartwright, Janet Lang, Quanyu Wang, and  Chris Fern. 2011. Evidence for shield construction from the Early Anglo-Saxon cemetery site at Tranmer House, Sutton Hoo, Suffolk’  The British Museum

Technical Research Bulletin, Volume 5, ed. Saunders, D. Archetype Publications  

Korenberg, Capucine & Baldwin, Alexandra. (2011) 'Laser cleaning of iron: surface appearance and re-corrosion of model systems' in Lasers in the Conservation of Artworks VIII, p 123-128 (2011).

Monique Pullan and Alexandra Baldwin, 2008. The Evolution of a Treatment Strategy for an Akali Sikh Turban’ ICOM-CC 15th Triennial Conference in New Delhi.  

Korenberg, C., Baldwin, A., Pouli, P. 2008 ‘Investigating and optimising the laser cleaning of corroded iron’. LACONA VII - Lasers in the Conservation of Artworks. Castillejo et al. (eds). Taylor and Francis Group, London.  

Korenberg, C., Baldwin, A.,  Pouli, P.  2008 ‘Investigating the laser cleaning of archaeological copper alloys using different laser systems’ LACONA VII - Lasers in the Conservation of Artworks. Castillejo et al. (eds). Taylor and Francis Group, London.

Korenberg, C., Baldwin, A. 2006 ‘Laser cleaning tests on archaeological copper alloy using an  

Nd:YAG laser’ Laser Chemistry Vol. 2006. Article ID 75831,7P. 2006. doi 10.1155/2006/75831  

Jones, A. 2002. ‘The case of the writing tablets from Nimrud’ Conservation News Issue 78