This talk focused on the research and treatment of Froment-Meurice oyster shell artifact made by Emile Froment-Meurice. The conservation concerns were identification of the corrosion layers and treatment of the metal surfaces. The artifact was purchased by William Walters in 1878. It is a composite artifact that depicts two putti discovering a pearl inside of an oyster. The oyster shell holds a natural pearl in a metal mount. The mermaid stem and putti are a silver copper alloy, the base is silver with a gold enriched surface and the hinge is a gold alloy. The oyster shell artifact was damaged and repaired multiple times in the past. The 1930 photograph from the museum shows the object in one piece.
The main condition issue for this treatment was the heavily tarnished metal surfaces. The silver and gold elements were nearly black with heavy tarnish overall. In the 1840s the goldsmiths would often intentionally create a darkened oxidized surface on silver. In a 2003 French catalogue “Tresors D’Argent” (translated as “Silver Treasures”) two similar shell objects are included, but both have polished and shiny metal elements. Other artifacts are listed as “oxidized silver and painted sheet metal” objects. A similar oxidized silver surface can be found on the commemorative shield (c. 1881) by Froment-Meurice in the Art Institute of Chicago labeled as “an elliptical shield of oxidized silver”.
There are a few differences between tarnished silver and oxidized silver. Tarnished silver is an unintentional patina created by airborne pollutants. Oxidized silver is an intentional antiqued patination created by chemical compounds. The small traces of silver chloride found on the surface of the artifacts may be a byproduct of silver chloride that was used to antique the surface of silver objects. With this in mind, the decision was made to clean the silver, but not remove the black surface. The gold elements would be cleaned until bright.
The gold and gilt silver components could not be cleaned with abrasion or normal polishing. Instead an acidified thiourea xantham gum gel was used to clean the surface. The gel as applied with a cotton pad and rinsed with water. The dwell time was kept to a quick 5 – 10 seconds. The process was repeated as needed. For the metal clasp, mylar was placed between the metal and the shell to protect the surface of the shell. The gel was applied with a brush and then rinsed with the use of chem-wipes and a bristle brush. The gel cleaning produced a bright and shiny surface. The process had excellent control and a quick removal of the material was possible. The putto were adhered into place, but the shell was left partially unassembled for transportation. A complex and well-designed storage and shipment box was created for the artifact. This storage box was featured in the STASH flash III on May 14th and will be published on the AIC STASH website.
Author: Corey Smith Riley
44th Annual AIC meeting, May 17, 2016, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do? The Conservation of an Italian Marble and Micromosaic Tabletop” by Elizabeth La Duc
Elizabeth La Duc gave an engrossing talk in the Objects Specialty session on the conservation treatment of a 19th century Pietre Dure and micromosaic tabletop belonging to the Josiah Quincy house of Historic New England. The stone tabletop, positioned on top of a painting and gilded wooden base, had and been conserved in the past. Her treatment was readdressing this past treatment and returning it to exhibit-able condition.
Pietre Dure translates into English as “hard stone”. The Pietre Dure portions consist of decorative stones set into the carved channels within the black marble base and adhered with a rosin and beeswax. The micromosaic areas are images made up from tiny tesserae called smalti. The smalti are cut to shape and inserted into an adhesive of linseed oil, lime and marble dust. The top surface was polished to a flat surface and the gaps between the tesserae were filled with tinted beeswax. This beeswax can be seen under ultraviolet light, but it has often been lost through over cleaning and use.
The table top was in poor condition. The four sections were poorly adhered and slightly misaligned. A large crack in the stone tabletop ran across the middle of the tabletop and transected both the Pietre Dure and the micromosaic elements of the table. Two stone inlays were missing and there were losses in the micromosaic along the central break.
The conservation treatment started with a surface cleaning of calcium saturated water with the pH raised to 8.5 with ammonia and added drops of Triton. Acetone was wicked into the old joins to dissolve the older restoration adhesive. B72 and microballons were used to glue the pieces back together.
For the conservation of the Pietre Dure portions two options were considered. In Florence, the missing elements would have been replaced with new cut stone. The Pietre Dure objects are decorative and require a high level of finish. Another Italian treatment option is to cast crushed stone and resin to recreate the missing inlays. This second approach was chosen and the new Pietre Dure elements were created with tinted epoxy bulked with fumed silica cast into silicone rubber molds. In some areas it was necessary to back of the Pietre Dure areas of loss with a layer of Japanese tissue coated with B72. The epoxy elements were then cast directly into the loss. Gamblin conservation colors were used to finish off the top of these fills and a layer of Acrysol WS24 was brushed on top to give a polished shine.
The micromosaic repairs were based on similar micromosaic designs. Since the micromosaics were mass produced with only a small range of designs, similar images could be used as guidelines for decorative elements on the fills. The areas of loss in the micromosaics were backed with acid free matt board topped with a layer of modostuc. Gamblin conservation colors were used to inpaint the surface in two steps. The first step painted the background colors and the second step painted the individual small tesserae.
This was an elegant and well executed treatment with results that were aesthetically pleasing and reversible. Under close examination, the areas of filled loss are distinguishable from the original material. This was a great talk and I hope to get a chance to work on micromosaics someday!
AIC’s 40th Annual Meeting, Objects Session, May 11, 2012, Always Becoming, Nora Naranjo-Morse, Gail Joice, Kelly McHugh.
“Always Becoming”, an outdoor sculpture installation at the National Museum of American Indian (NMAI), was the focus of the presentation by Artist Nora Naranjo-Morse, NMAI Collections Manager Gail Joice and NMAI Conservator Kelly McHugh. Like the work of art “Always Becoming”, this presentation was engaging, thoughtful and inspiring.
Nora Naranjo-Morse, a member of the Tewa tribe, Santa Clara Pueblo, won the NMAI outdoor sculpture competition in 2007. Nora Naranjo-Morse lives only a few hours from Albuquerque and was a welcome artist addition to the objects conservation talks of the day. Her creative and welcoming personality was apparent through out the presentation, as it is her artwork. The outdoor installation “Always Becoming” consists of five ephemeral sculptures made of straw, mud, stone and wood built on a landscaped area near NMAI. The creation of the sculptures started a ten year project that will continue to grow and transform for years to come. The design of artwork is based on indigenous architecture and has the ideas of environment, family and culture at its core.
A one hour long documentary movie on this project will be coming out in the summer 2012, and we were lucky enough to see a few clips from it during the presentation. The movie clips clearly showed how the creation of this artwork was a truly inclusive project with NMAI staff members and interns working along side Nora Naranjo-Morse during the construction and subsequent yearly repairs. Interviews with passersby, workers and volunteers made it touchingly clear that the whole process was a moving one. The movie clip stated that the project was “not just a pueblo idea, it was an intertribal idea, it was a people idea” and this feeling of inclusiveness was apparent in the movie interviews as well as in the presentation. Many NMAI podcasts are available, if you want to see clips of the creative process.
“Always Becoming” is an ever-changing artwork that is intended to melt back into the earth. The artwork is always deteriorating naturally as it weathers the DC snow and thunderstorms, summer heat and the passage of time. This is an idea that does not immediately correlate with conservation standards, but it was extremely clear that NMAI has worked through this initial change in conservation practice. Through continual communication and yearly visits by the artist, the conservation department at NMAI has been able to work past the automatic reaction to preserve and protect. By allowing the sculptures to change over time they are in fact protecting the original and continual intent of the artist.
Gail Joice is the Collections Manager at the NMAI Museum. It is her job to monitor the adobe sculptures onsite. Gail made the enlightening comment about how her work with these artifacts has pushed the bounds of her thoughts on objects care. Before this project the ideal for a condition report was to be able to state “no change”, a statement that all of the conservators in the audience clearly understand, but to Nora Naranjo-Morse this would be a disappointment. Change is built into the life of these artifacts. If a piece falls off of the sculptures, it will be left where it falls without any picking it up, labeling it and placing it in a fragment bag (Obviously a collections managers first impulse!). The question session after the presentation clarified that these fallen pieces are often reincorporated into the sculpture during the yearly conservation workshop when the artist returns to work on the pieces.
The sculptures have been a welcoming addition to the grounds of NMAI. Not only do the visitors and passersby appreciate the installation, but red tail hawks, mason bees, spiders, and a mother robin have all made their homes in the sculptures. One story they told occurred right before President Obama’s inauguration. The nighttime security at the museum noticed flames coming out from under one of the sculptures and it became quickly apparent that a homeless man had crawled underneath the sculpture and had lit a fire to warm up. The museum officers responded quickly and the fire was extinguished, but the artist’s and NMAI staffs’ reactions to this are not what the conservation audience would have predicted. This was not seen as an act of vandalism, but instead it was seen as a man needing to find shelter in the cold and he had found the artwork welcoming and inviting as it was intended. It was a thoughtful and reflective moment in the audience when this was described.
Kelly McHugh is the NMAI conservator that is involved in Nora Naranjo-Morse’s annual visits and sculpture care workshops with the NMAI conservation interns and fellows. Kelly was able to sum up all of the main points of the presentation and clearly put them into a conservation context. As Kelly stated, “Always Becoming” is a contemporary sculpture, a traditional sculpture, a community sculpture and an ephemeral sculpture. Nora Naranjo-Morse’s intention of inclusiveness, community importance and sculptural interaction with the environment fits perfectly into the framework and mission of NMAI. Kelly made a comparison between a spider on an outdoor bronze sculpture versus one living on “Always Becoming” that struck home with the conservators in the room. She said that a spider on a museum bronze sculpture would be seen as an invader and need to be removed, where as a spider coming to live on “Always Becoming” would be welcomed and would have found his home.
The question session after the presentation ran late, but this only served to make it clear how engaged the audience was in the presentation. The questions clarified further the process that takes place when the artist comes on her annual visits. Essentially the NMAI staff follows her lead and assists her in ways that she sees fit, whether that is cutting back weakened bamboo to be sent to the horticultural department’s compost or reworking a delaminating section of the sculpture. Scott Carrlee asked about whether the artwork is accessioned into the NMAI collection and Gail answered that yes each of the sculptures has a number and is accessioned into the collection. She thought that once the sculpture has returned entirely to the earth that there may be a ceremonial deaccessioning of the piece. This seems like a very fitting course of action.
I could write pages on this presentation, because it was interesting, informative and thought provoking. The audience was engaged in each of the speaker’s presentations which all worked together to give a full and clear picture of this project. As Kelly pointed out, “Always Becoming” continues to inspire them into always becoming something better. We, the world, and conservation is always changing and the NMAI staff and Artist Nora Naranjo-Morse clearly shared a project that had us all thinking about the ways that our profession has changed and needs to change in order to fit the future. This was a truly enjoyable and valuable talk.
40th Annual Meeting, Textiles Session, May 10, A Cautionary Tale: Mounting Flat Textiles – An Historical Overview, Christine Giuntini
Christine Giuntini gave a wonderful paper on the mounting of flat textiles in the mid 20th Century. The paper was in a way a tribute to the Textile Museum in Washington, DC and the quality work that they did to set the standards for textile conservation in the United States. The paper is based on the historic mounting methods presented in two articles that were published by the Textile Museum in the 1940s and 1950s. These two methods are the stitched mount and the pressure mount.
Conservation publications and focus today have moved away from the intense focus on complicated individual treatments in favor of overall storage and preventative conservation. When we do research and comment on early conservation treatments today, it is often due to the troubles that older materials and techniques have caused in retreatment. We have to remember that there is still a lot that we can learn from older treatments and conservation theory.
The Textile Museum in Washington, DC was the real center for beginnings of textile conservation in the United States. The museum opened in 1925 and was open by appointment only until the 1950s. The museum was founded by George Hewitt Myers was created for the preservation, study and display of historic textiles.
Mr. Myers was very interested in cleaning of the textiles and went so far as to say that patina on textiles is a synonym for dirt. He also felt that the dirt should be removed because it did not logically improve the art. One of the publications that Christine Giuntini highlighted in her presentation was “Cleaning and Mounting Procedures For Wool Textiles” written by Francina S. Greene, Preparator and Curator at the Textile Museum. (This article is available as a pdf at http://www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/monographs/tm_work.pdf). Like Myers, Francina Greene was very conscience of the dirt on the artifacts and begins this article with “When ancient textiles are acquired they are often dirty, distorted, dry, dull in color and ragged. In addition to being dirty, many are stiff with grease, and stained. We find that some reveal crude attempts at cleaning, patching and mounting.” This publication emphasizes a number of textile conservation methodologies that are still used today. The textiles in the Textile museum were handled as little as possible due to their fragile condition. The flipping technique of sandwiching the textile between two rigid supports in order to turn it over is described. This technique is still used today. When stitching a textile to a support as few stitches as possible were taken due to the damage that they cause to the artifact. Lastly, Greene also described the pressure mount technique of mounting a textile by sandwiching it between two pieces of plexiglass. The Textile Museum used a number of cellulose acetate products (Protectoid and then Lumarith) as they were developed. Today cellulose acetate is not used in conservation or exhibition, but the practice of using a clear rigid support is still used despite the fact that the specific materials have changed.
The second publication by Mrs. Francina Greene was published in Studies in Conservation volume 2 and is titled, “The Cleaning and Mounting of a Large Wool Tapestry.” This article was the first detailed conservation treatment to appear in Studies in Conservation. There is a great picture in this article that speaks a thousand words. The image shows one conservator on top of a large tapestry stand and one conservator below the stand passing a needle back and forth through the tapestry. This treatment was a reconstruction of a very fragile and friable textile. Photographs were taken to scale of all of the textile fragments and the photographs were rearranged in order to determine the proper arrangement so the textile would be spared the extra handling. Greene also notes that curved needles were not used for this treatment, because of the stress they caused on the fragile fabric. This is why two conservators had to pass the needle back and forth to each other.
The death of Mr. Myers and the retirement of Mrs. Greene in the 1950s brought about a time of transition at the Textile Museum. In 1964 the Textile Museum started the first textile conservation training and internship program in the United States. They worked with a Chemist consultant in order to collaborate on cleaning methods. They created solid composite backings with perforations for better air exchange and the reversed mount was developed. One of the important students in this program was Nobuko Kajitani, who went on to work at the newly established textile conservation program at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1973. Nobuko developed the use of a window in the back of the peg board mounts and worked to develop the pressure mount for fragile textiles. Her focus was on the overall care of the collection and not on publishing individual conservation treatments. Nobuko was the first to emphasize that a conservation plan was of great importance. In a 1974 article she wrote, “Preservation of collections is a primary function of a museum… sound planning and preservation fitted to the requirements of the collection in exhibition, storage and study areas should be discussed and understood.” This is obviously a primary focus of the conservation world today. It is clear that the Textile Museum staff and the textile conservators trained in their educational program laid the foundation for the textile conservation program in the United States today.
During the question portion of the presentation a suggestion arose that Christine Giuntini should work with the conservators at the Textile Museum to further research the role that the Textile Museum played in creating the groundwork for the profession today. I think that this would be an excellent paper and hope that they decide to collaborate in this project.