Saving “Hugo”: When Niche Restoration Techniques Become a Detective Adventure Combining Science and Art

As we stroll through the qui­et gal­leries of a muse­um, our gaze often focus­es on the art trea­sures gleam­ing under the spot­lights. How­ev­er, behind these gleam­ing frames, behind those heavy doors marked “No Admis­sion,” lies a lit­tle-known yet cru­cial world. There, you’ll find not only paints and can­vas­es, but also micro­scopes, chem­i­cal reagents, scalpels, and a group of peo­ple rac­ing against time. This is explored in the Ger­man sci­ence pic­ture book, *How to Save a Work of Art?*Wie ret­tet man Kun­st?This is pre­cise­ly the key to unlock­ing the secrets behind muse­ums.

The Ger­man ver­sion of this book was short­list­ed for the Aus­tri­an Sci­ence Book of the Year Award and the Fran­co-Ger­man Youth Lit­er­a­ture Award as soon as it was pub­lished. It is not only a tech­ni­cal man­u­al about “fix­ing and repair­ing”, but also a “paper muse­um” that per­fect­ly blends hard sci­ence, detec­tive sus­pense and human­is­tic care.

The Adven­ture of Decon­struct­ing “Hugo”

When peo­ple think of art restora­tion, they often pic­ture seri­ous white coats and dry chem­i­cal equa­tions. But this book, co-authored by two vet­er­an restor­ers, Fabi­enne Mey­er and Sibylle Wulff, takes a dif­fer­ent approach, choos­ing a high­ly dra­mat­ic angle—a res­cue oper­a­tion called “Sav­ing Hugo.”

The entire sto­ry revolves around a fic­tion­al pro­tag­o­nist: a 17th-cen­tu­ry por­trait of a boy, Vic­tor Hugo. Instead of a text­book-style nar­ra­tive, the sto­ry opens with a thrilling muse­um heist. The clum­sy thief, in his haste to steal the paint­ing, leaves “Hugo” in a damp, filthy garage. This inge­nious plot device instant­ly con­cretizes the abstract con­cept of “the aging of arti­facts” into a sud­den dis­as­ter.Hugo not only suf­fered phys­i­cal impacts dur­ing trans­port, but also faced the dead­ly threats of being soaked in mud and water, mold growth, and tem­per­a­ture fluc­tu­a­tions.When the police final­ly recov­ered the paint­ing, Hugo’s work was in ruins, and an urgent “med­ical res­cue” was imper­a­tive.

What’s most sur­pris­ing is that “Hugo” isn’t mere­ly a pas­sive object in the book. The cre­ators have breathed life and per­son­al­i­ty into him, mak­ing him the book’s “com­plaint king.” Through car­toon­ish speech bub­bles, this char­ac­ter, like a picky patient, offers humor­ous obser­va­tions about the restor­ers’ work. When the restor­ers spend long hours under the micro­scope devel­op­ing a plan and delay start­ing repairs, Hugo can’t help but com­plain about being “left out”; when the clean­ing swabs touch the wound, he cries out in pain; and when it’s final­ly restored, he can’t hide his pride. This anthro­po­mor­phic first-per­son per­spec­tive instant­ly breaks down the bar­ri­ers between tech­ni­cal exper­tise and ordi­nary read­ers, allow­ing chil­dren to devel­op an emo­tion­al con­nec­tion with the arti­facts while reading—we are no longer cold­ly observ­ing the repair of an object, but car­ing about the fate of a friend named Hugo.

This unique nar­ra­tive strat­e­gy ben­e­fits from the exquis­ite visu­al trans­la­tion of illus­tra­tor Mar­ti­na Leykamm. She employs a style akin to graph­ic nov­els, seam­less­ly con­nect­ing the micro­scop­ic world of sci­ence with the macro­scop­ic nar­ra­tive set­ting. The spe­cial­ly designed large-for­mat fold-out pages are the fin­ish­ing touch to the visu­al pre­sen­ta­tion. When read­ers unfold these pages, it’s as if they are per­son­al­ly open­ing the door to a restora­tion room, or putting their eyes close to a micro­scope: the left side might reveal a gray, visu­al­ly obscure scene, while the right side shows the secret of the “crooked nose” as revealed by the artist under X‑ray; one moment it’s a panoram­ic view of the muse­um, the next it’s fibers and pig­ment par­ti­cles mag­ni­fied hun­dreds of times. This design not only increas­es the inter­ac­tiv­i­ty of the read­ing expe­ri­ence but also cre­ates a sense of sur­prise through lay­ered rev­e­la­tion. As Ger­man media have com­ment­ed, the book itself is “an art­work about art.”

The Gold­en Tri­an­gle: When Sci­en­tists Pick Up Pic­ture Book Pens

The rea­son why “How to Save a Work of Art?” can explain such a niche pro­fes­sion­al knowl­edge in such an acces­si­ble way is thanks to the “gold­en tri­an­gle” of three female cre­ators behind it. This is not just the usu­al inter­pre­ta­tion of chil­dren’s book authors after con­sult­ing mate­ri­als, but rather gen­uine indus­try experts shar­ing their pro­fes­sion­al expe­ri­ences.

One of the authors, Dr. Mey­er, is a con­ser­va­tor at the Cop­per­plate Print Gallery of the Berlin State Muse­ums. She spe­cial­izes not only in paper and mod­ern art restora­tion but also holds a doc­tor­al degree in research on harm­ful sub­stances in the muse­um envi­ron­ment, such as volatile organ­ic com­pounds. This gives the book’s descrip­tions of paper acid­i­fi­ca­tion and the cor­ro­sive effects of air pol­lu­tants on art­works a high lev­el of aca­d­e­m­ic val­ue. The oth­er author, Sibyl Ulf, comes from the Leipzig Uni­ver­si­ty Art Col­lec­tions. She spe­cial­izes in the restora­tion of clas­si­cal oil paint­ings and poly­chrome wood carv­ings. It was she who con­tributed the pro­to­type inspi­ra­tion for the char­ac­ter “Hugo” to this book and brought with her pro­found knowl­edge of the struc­ture of ancient pig­ment lay­ers and the prop­er­ties of wood.

How­ev­er, experts often fall into the trap of writ­ing over­ly com­plex and dif­fi­cult-to-under­stand sci­ence arti­cles. This is where the illus­tra­tor of this book plays a cru­cial “trans­la­tor” role. She trans­forms the com­plex terms used by the two sci­en­tists, such as “chroic struc­ture” and “micro­fad­ing test,” into intu­itive, humor­ous, and log­i­cal visu­al lan­guage. For exam­ple, to explain the threat of insects to art­works, Recam does­n’t draw dis­turb­ing pho­tos of real insects, but instead uses exag­ger­at­ed car­toon tech­niques to depict how vora­cious wood­worms and sil­ver­fish devour frames and paper like a feast. She even includes details like the stains left by fly­ing insects “reliev­ing them­selves” on famous paint­ings. These details real­is­ti­cal­ly reflect the chal­lenges of cul­tur­al her­itage preser­va­tion while also elic­it­ing laugh­ter from young read­ers.

This acces­si­bil­i­ty is not acci­den­tal, but rather “test­ed in real-world use.” Dr. May­er revealed that her two chil­dren (aged 9 and 13) were the book’s most demand­ing “first read­ers.” Dur­ing the writ­ing process, the chil­dren blunt­ly point­ed out which pas­sages were “too bor­ing” or “incom­pre­hen­si­ble,” prompt­ing the writ­ing team to con­tin­u­ous­ly refine the text until the com­plex ethics and chem­i­cal prin­ci­ples of restora­tion were trans­formed into sto­ries that even 9‑year-olds could enjoy. This extreme pur­suit of audi­ence accep­tance has enabled the book to suc­cess­ful­ly break through age bar­ri­ers, becom­ing a tru­ly mean­ing­ful fam­i­ly book.

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Break­ing the mold of obscure knowl­edge: Pre­ven­tion is bet­ter than cure

Beneath its cap­ti­vat­ing nar­ra­tive, this book con­veys a core mes­sage that is excep­tion­al­ly seri­ous and pro­found. It attempts to cor­rect a fun­da­men­tal mis­con­cep­tion about restora­tion: the best pro­tec­tion is not reac­tive repair, but rather “pre­ven­ta­tive pro­tec­tion.”

The book uses a title called ““1, 2, 3, Sal­va­tion!”The dice game clev­er­ly incor­po­rates this mod­ern con­cept of cul­tur­al her­itage preser­va­tion. In this game, play­ers face threats such as light, humid­i­ty fluc­tu­a­tions, and mold. The key to vic­to­ry lies not in skill­ful­ly repair­ing dam­age, but in con­trol­ling the envi­ron­ment to pre­vent dam­age from occur­ring in the first place. The author repeat­ed­ly empha­sizes that “works of art are unique and irre­place­able.” Although mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy can cre­ate per­fect repli­cas, repli­cas are often “soul­less.” Works of art car­ry human mem­o­ries; once the orig­i­nal is lost, that his­tor­i­cal mem­o­ry is also erased. There­fore, the work of restor­ers is essen­tial­ly a fight against for­get­ting, a pro­tec­tion of the “mate­r­i­al evi­dence” of human civ­i­liza­tion.

Fur­ther­more, this book great­ly sat­is­fies the pub­lic’s curios­i­ty about “art detec­tives.” Restor­ers are not mere­ly skilled crafts­men, but also detec­tives pro­fi­cient in chem­istry, physics, and his­to­ry. A ded­i­cat­ed chap­ter reveals the tricks of forgers—how they soak paper in tea to fake age, or bake paint­ings in an oven to cre­ate ancient cracks. Restor­ers, on the oth­er hand, use high-tech meth­ods such as X‑rays and ultra­vi­o­let flu­o­res­cence, peel­ing back the lay­ers of dis­guise like foren­sic sci­en­tists to reveal the truth. This “deci­pher­ing” process great­ly enhances the read­ing expe­ri­ence, leav­ing read­ers amazed by the meth­ods of forgery while also inspir­ing awe for the pow­er of sci­en­tif­ic authen­ti­ca­tion.

This process of demys­ti­fy­ing restor­ers also breaks down the stereo­type of them as “lone­ly crafts­men.” In real­i­ty, restor­ers need to dis­cuss exhi­bi­tion light­ing with cura­tors, study pest con­trol with biol­o­gists, and ana­lyze sol­vent com­po­si­tion with chemists. This book, through a panoram­ic pre­sen­ta­tion, restores the true face of this pro­fes­sion as a com­pos­ite of “sci­en­tist + doc­tor + artist.”

An ide­al mod­el of STEAM edu­ca­tion and par­ent-child read­ing

For both fam­i­ly edu­ca­tion and school teach­ing, *How to Save a Work of Art?* is undoubt­ed­ly a trea­sure trove of inter­dis­ci­pli­nary knowl­edge and ide­al mate­r­i­al for STEAM edu­ca­tion (Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy, Engi­neer­ing, Art, and Math­e­mat­ics). It nat­u­ral­ly con­nects seem­ing­ly unre­lat­ed sub­jects:

On a sci­en­tif­ic lev­el, the book cov­ers a great deal of chem­istry and biol­o­gy. Par­ents can use the dia­grams about the lay­ered struc­ture of pig­ments in the book to explain to their chil­dren that oil paint­ing is not a flat lay­er of col­or, but a three-dimen­sion­al struc­ture made up of chem­i­cal sub­stances such as base coats, pig­ments, and var­nish­es; or they can use the con­cept of a “micro-fad­ing test” to con­duct small home exper­i­ments on the effect of light on col­or and dis­cuss why the light­ing in muse­ums is always so dim.

On a tech­ni­cal lev­el, the appli­ca­tion of non-destruc­tive test­ing tech­nolo­gies such as X‑rays and infrared reflec­tion imag­ing demon­strates to chil­dren how the knowl­edge of spec­tral physics can be applied in real life. The X‑ray dis­cov­ery of Vic­tor Hugo’s “crooked nose” is a per­fect exam­ple, illus­trat­ing how tech­nol­o­gy can see through his­to­ry that is invis­i­ble to the naked eye.

On a human­is­tic and eth­i­cal lev­el, the book’s dis­cus­sion on “restor­ing the old as it was” ver­sus “cre­at­ing a com­plete­ly new one” pro­vides excel­lent philo­soph­i­cal mate­r­i­al for par­ent-child dia­logue. Par­ents can guide their chil­dren to think about: Why don’t we paint Hugo in a com­plete­ly new way? What is the sig­nif­i­cance of pre­serv­ing the traces left by his­to­ry (such as cracks)? Such dis­cus­sions help cul­ti­vate chil­dren’s respect for authen­tic­i­ty and his­tor­i­cal aware­ness.

To enhance the read­ing expe­ri­ence, a hid­den “rab­bit” East­er egg is incor­po­rat­ed through­out the book. This is not just a search game, but also a train­ing ground for chil­dren’s obser­va­tion skills—just as a restor­er needs to keen­ly spot even the slight­est anom­aly in a paint­ing. For younger read­ers, par­ents and chil­dren can role-play as “the dam­aged Hugo” and “the restor­er doc­tor,” sim­u­lat­ing a con­sul­ta­tion process and help­ing chil­dren under­stand the impor­tance of care and con­cern through role-play­ing. For old­er chil­dren, the chap­ters on exhi­bi­tion plan­ning offer career enlight­en­ment, allow­ing them to under­stand the com­plex logis­tics, insur­ance, and envi­ron­men­tal con­trol process­es behind an exhi­bi­tion.

The suc­cess of “How to Save Art­works?” lies in its avoid­ance of con­de­scend­ing pro­fes­sion­al lec­tures. Instead, it hum­bles itself and tells a sto­ry about “love and pro­tec­tion” in a child’s lan­guage. It tells us that those seem­ing­ly aloof arti­facts in muse­um glass cas­es are just like us; they can get hurt, they can become ill, and they also need care and treat­ment.

When these three female cre­ators unfold the micro­scop­ic world under the micro­scope in such a mag­nif­i­cent pic­ture book for­mat, they are actu­al­ly invit­ing every read­er to par­tic­i­pate in this great res­cue oper­a­tion. As the book states:

““By pro­tect­ing art­works, we are pro­tect­ing the mem­o­ry of human soci­ety and build­ing bridges between human­i­ty in the past, present, and future.””

Argen­tine Primera División will be held in Bei­jing on Feb­ru­ary 10, 2026.

Appen­dix: Ger­man-lan­guage mediaEval­u­a­tion and com­pi­la­tion

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“How to Save a Work of Art?” has received wide­spread acclaim from pro­fes­sion­al crit­ics and the media since its pub­li­ca­tion. Review­ers gen­er­al­ly praise the book’s unique top­ic, detailed con­tent, engag­ing and edu­ca­tion­al approach, and excel­lent pro­duc­tion qual­i­ty, call­ing it a stand­out among chil­dren’s sci­ence books in recent years. The fol­low­ing are excerpts of some rep­re­sen­ta­tive reviews and feed­back:

• Ger­manyFre­undin mag­a­zineThe review states, “Flip­ping through this fam­i­ly-ori­ent­ed book, you’ll con­stant­ly exclaim ‘Aha!’ First, it bril­liant­ly explains the work­ings of a large muse­um restora­tion work­shop; sec­ond, its design is sim­ply superb.” This com­ment affirms the book’s out­stand­ing per­for­mance in both depth of knowl­edge and cre­ative lay­out.
• The Badis­che Zeitung, a news­pa­per from Baden-Würt­tem­berg.Book crit­ic Mar­i­on Klötzer praised the book, say­ing it “styles like a grand graph­ic nov­el, incor­po­rat­ing clever touch­es like fold-out pages, pho­tographs, and col­lages, and revolves around meth­ods of art preser­va­tion… The book itself is a work of art.” This review high­lights the high artis­tic qual­i­ty of the book’s illus­tra­tions and design, ele­vat­ing it to the lev­el of a “work of art.”
• The Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ am Son­ntag), a Swiss news­pa­per.The review states, “After read­ing this rich­ly infor­ma­tive book, you will enter muse­ums with a fresh per­spec­tive. The two authors impart much lit­tle-known knowl­edge and ignite a fas­ci­na­tion with the hid­den secrets with­in art­works.” This pos­i­tive recep­tion from the Swiss media demon­strates that the book’s influ­ence has extend­ed beyond Ger­many, res­onat­ing wide­ly with­in the Ger­man-speak­ing world. Read­ers not only gain knowl­edge but also cul­ti­vate a renewed pas­sion for art.
• Aus­tri­an news­pa­per Der Stan­dardThomas Hof­mann praised the book, say­ing, “Three women, with great ambi­tion, pas­sion, and exper­tise, cou­pled with a love of detail and a high lev­el of artistry, have answered the ques­tion ‘How to save a work of art?’ ” This assess­ment ele­vates the book to an indus­try-lead­ing lev­el, empha­siz­ing the seam­less inte­gra­tion of the cre­ators’ pro­fes­sion­al back­ground and artis­tic expres­sion.A bench­mark for cross-dis­ci­pli­nary sci­ence pop­u­lar­iza­tion.
• The jury of the Fran­co-Ger­man Youth Lit­er­a­ture Prize, a pres­ti­gious award in Ger­man youth lit­er­a­ture. The award cita­tion reads: “When experts write books, non-spe­cial­ist read­ers may find them obscure if not han­dled prop­er­ly. How­ev­er, these two restor­ers have proven that pop­u­lar sci­ence can be con­veyed in an author­i­ta­tive yet humor­ous way. They have ful­ly uti­lized their exper­tise, and the illus­tra­tor’s skill­ful work makes the whole book a cap­ti­vat­ing read.”“
  The judg­ing pan­el specif­i­cal­ly men­tioned in the book that““The boy in the paint­ing, Vic­tor Hugo, has been stolen.””Using this frame­work, the numer­ous dan­gers faced by art­works are con­cretized; then, Hugo…““Com­ic-style satire and nar­ra­tion””How the art­work itself was saved through a series of actions. The review also praised the book.““The clear dou­ble-page lay­out, clever arrange­ment, and rich and var­ied illus­tra­tions bring many eye-catch­ing details, while the large for­mat and fold-out design ensure clear dis­play of infor­ma­tion.””The review com­mit­tee not­ed that the book cov­ers the caus­es of dam­age such as cracks, pig­ment chalk­ing, bac­te­r­i­al ero­sion, and wear, as well as mate­ri­als sci­ence knowl­edge and inves­tiga­tive meth­ods rang­ing from infrared to micro-fad­ing tests. The amount of infor­ma­tion is aston­ish­ing, yet the struc­ture is excel­lent. “Want a glimpse behind the scenes of muse­ums? This book is for you. It cov­ers not only paint­ing but also sculp­ture, draw­ing, and many oth­er aspects, pro­vid­ing you with the core essen­tials. It’s a tru­ly cap­ti­vat­ing read.” The com­mit­tee’s high praise ful­ly affirms the book’s com­pre­hen­sive suc­cess in terms of pro­fes­sion­al­ism, engag­ing con­tent, and lay­out design.
• Chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture review mag­a­zine *Esel­sohr*Edi­tor-in-Chief Chris­tine Pax­mann praised the book as a “rare and for­tu­nate work” in terms of its con­tent deliv­ery, call­ing it…““This is a boon for both design and knowl­edge dis­sem­i­na­tion.””The degree to which it com­bines edu­ca­tion and enter­tain­ment is sur­pris­ing­ly good.
• Deutsch­land­funk, Ger­many’s nation­al pub­lic radio sta­tionThe book was hailed as one of the “must-have clas­sics for every home” on a cul­tur­al pro­gram, with reviews not­ing its “incred­i­bly rich information…brilliant con­cep­tion” and high praise for its engag­ing con­tent. The host excit­ed­ly remarked on the pro­gram, “This large-for­mat and excep­tion­al­ly bril­liant pop­u­lar sci­ence book allows one to tru­ly appre­ci­ate the charm of art…every fam­i­ly should have a copy of this; it’s incred­i­bly enter­tain­ing!”
• The Ger­man WDR radio chil­dren’s pro­gram “Mouse Show” (Die Sendung mit der Maus)I also paid atten­tion to this book, call­ing it…““Full of art knowl­edge””And it is suit­able for chil­dren to lis­ten to and read.MDR Tele­vi­sion Cul­tur­al Pro­gramsThe host, Brit­ta Selle, com­ment­ed: “In this rich­ly infor­ma­tive chil­dren’s book, the two authors share their com­pre­hen­sive knowl­edge as restor­ers, mak­ing art as cap­ti­vat­ing as a detec­tive nov­el.”
• The pub­lish­ing indus­try mag­a­zine *Börsen­blatt*This book was high­light­ed as a key rec­om­men­da­tion in the annu­al “Leselotse” read­ing col­umn, prais­ing its…““The large for­mat and inge­nious fold-out pages pro­vide a com­pre­hen­sive view of the restora­tion work and every­thing that has hap­pened in the muse­um sur­round­ing its art col­lec­tion. All of this togeth­er forms a com­plete work of art, best read with a touch of humor. What could be bet­ter!””Jür­gen Kanold of the Süd­west Presse exclaimed: “So much inter­est­ing knowl­edge, pre­sent­ed in a style akin to a graph­ic nov­el, is both enter­tain­ing and thought-pro­vok­ing… and the book itself is a work of art.”

In con­clu­sion, this book has received almost unan­i­mous pos­i­tive reviews. Feed­back from main­stream media, pro­fes­sion­al book crit­ics, and the edu­ca­tion sec­tor all agree that *How to Save Art­works?* strikes a per­fect bal­ance between infor­ma­tive­ness and read­abil­i­ty. It allows read­ers to learn obscure knowl­edge about art restora­tion while enjoy­ing them­selves and sat­is­fy­ing their curios­i­ty. As the Ger­man news­pa­per *Süd­deutsche Zeitung* com­ment­ed, “The author not only tru­ly under­stands what they’re talk­ing about—but also explains it in an engag­ing and acces­si­ble way.“Art reads like a sus­pense nov­el!”Many reviews empha­size the trans­for­ma­tive effect of read­ing this book: “After read­ing this rich book, our per­spec­tive on muse­ums has changed”—this is the high­est praise for an excel­lent pop­u­lar sci­ence book on art. It can be said that this book fills a gap in chil­dren’s pub­lish­ing on art con­ser­va­tion, win­ning sin­cere appre­ci­a­tion from all sec­tors for its pro­fes­sion­al depth and acces­si­ble appeal.