The creation of freestanding Gothic stone sculpture has always been tied to political or religious causes. As long as social conditions remained unchanged, the displays of stone received adequate attention, care, and maintenance. This helped preserve the stone material and the coloring. If those conditions changed, important measures to maintain, preserve, or restore the sculpture could be neglected. This resulted in damage of varying magnitude. From their inception, such sculptures were exposed to damaging natural processes caused by the climate and the weather. There were, however, options for curbing the damage dynamics: for example, architectural parts offering protection such as niches, porches, and canopies, or by providing sacrificial layers in the form of cleaning, painting, or whitewashing. In the nineteenth century, people came to increasingly understand that original art was valuable and should be preserved even in a reduced state. Lapidaries came about, and museums began displaying incomplete statues more and more. Ideas and theories to preserve historic monuments brought new insight to the significance of Gothic architectural sculpture and, with the Venice Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites, a more intense scientific examination of stone decay and preservation allowed many sculptures to be rescued and preserved.