A collections drawer opens and every object inside wears the same thing: a small white rag-paper tag on cotton string, carrying a number like 1990.45.3. Year, lot, item. That number is the object's permanent name — the one fact a registrar will not let go of.

Conservators apply it in carbon-black acrylic over a Paraloid B-72 barrier coat, then seal it with a second coat, because the mark has to survive a century and lift off without a trace. The visual language follows from that brief: clean stock, hairline rules, a two-column field list, and enough air around the number that nothing competes with it.