My friend Mary Greenacre, who has died aged 77, was an archaeological and museum conservator of distinction, possessing an innate empathy with fragile and precious objects.
Mary specialised in ceramics, and came to understand prehistoric pottery, 18th-century terracotta sculpture and Delftware. She became conservator at the South West Area Museum Service in Bristol in 1969, where she met Francis Greenacre, curator of fine art at the City Art Gallery. They married within six months and became the lively hosts of many gatherings. Her studio in the City Art Gallery became a place of work, friendship and laughter, with music and Test Match Special on the radio. However, she never forgave the Bristol professor who, standing by her workbench, stubbed out his cigarette on the Delftware apothecary’s slab that she had just conserved.
