Monumental death: thinking about the conservation of monuments through Louis-François Roubiliac’s Nightingale monument

How do we begin to think about the conservation of large-scale monuments and what kinds of treatments might be proposed? Via an encounter with Louis-François Roubiliac’s monument to Lady Elizabeth and Joseph Nightingale through an interdisciplinary lens, this article aims to explore aspects of monument conservation through the Nightingale monument and its figure of Death. By reviewing the spectrum of conservation efforts that have been historically and recently applied both to the monument and in the broader context of conservation in the abbey, the article addresses the practical challenges associated with undertaking work on a memorial, using the Nightingale monument as an immediate case study. The contextual and iconographic changes produced by the level of conservation undertaken play a significant role in shaping how sculpture is perceived in the space and by those who visit it.