{"id":14456,"date":"2016-05-25T15:12:23","date_gmt":"2016-05-25T20:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.conservators-converse.org\/?p=14456"},"modified":"2016-05-25T15:12:23","modified_gmt":"2016-05-25T20:12:23","slug":"44th-annual-aic-meeting-may-17-2016-an-unexpected-surface-research-and-treatment-of-a-19th-century-mounted-oyster-shell-by-froment-meurice-by-emily-brown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/2016\/05\/25\/44th-annual-aic-meeting-may-17-2016-an-unexpected-surface-research-and-treatment-of-a-19th-century-mounted-oyster-shell-by-froment-meurice-by-emily-brown\/","title":{"rendered":"44th Annual AIC meeting, May 17, 2016, \u201cAn Unexpected Surface: Research and treatment of a 19th century mounted oyster shell by Froment-Meurice\u201d by Emily Brown"},"content":{"rendered":"

This talk focused on the research and treatment of Froment-Meurice oyster shell artifact made by Emile Froment-Meurice.\u00a0 The conservation concerns were identification of the corrosion layers and treatment of the metal surfaces.\u00a0\u00a0 The artifact was purchased by William Walters in 1878.\u00a0 It is a composite artifact that depicts two putti discovering a pearl inside of an oyster.\u00a0 The oyster shell holds a natural pearl in a metal mount.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The oyster shell artifact was damaged and repaired multiple times in the past.\u00a0 The 1930 photograph from the museum shows the object in one piece.
\nThe main condition issue for this treatment was the heavily tarnished metal surfaces.\u00a0 The silver and gold elements were nearly black with heavy tarnish overall.\u00a0 In the 1840s the goldsmiths would often intentionally create a darkened oxidized surface on silver.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Other artifacts are listed as “oxidized silver and painted sheet metal” objects.\u00a0 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”.
\nThere are a few differences between tarnished silver and oxidized silver.\u00a0 Tarnished silver is an unintentional patina created by airborne pollutants.\u00a0 Oxidized silver is an intentional antiqued patination created by chemical compounds.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 With this in mind, the decision was made to clean the silver, but not remove the black surface.\u00a0 The gold elements would be cleaned until bright.
\nThe gold and gilt silver components could not be cleaned with abrasion or normal polishing.\u00a0 Instead an acidified thiourea xantham gum gel was used to clean the surface.\u00a0 The gel as applied with a cotton pad and rinsed with water.\u00a0 The dwell time was kept to a quick 5 – 10 seconds.\u00a0 The process was repeated as needed.\u00a0 For the metal clasp, mylar was placed between the metal and the shell to protect the surface of the shell.\u00a0 The gel was applied with a brush and then rinsed with the use of chem-wipes and a bristle brush.\u00a0 The gel cleaning produced a bright and shiny surface.\u00a0 The process had excellent control and a quick removal of the material was possible.\u00a0 The putto were adhered into place, but the shell was left partially unassembled for transportation.\u00a0 A complex and well-designed storage and shipment box was created for the artifact.\u00a0 This storage box was featured in the STASH flash III on May 14th<\/sup> and will be published on the AIC STASH website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This talk focused on the research and treatment of Froment-Meurice oyster shell artifact made by Emile Froment-Meurice.\u00a0 The conservation concerns were identification of the corrosion layers and treatment of the metal surfaces.\u00a0\u00a0 The artifact was purchased by William Walters in 1878.\u00a0 It is a composite artifact that depicts two putti discovering a pearl inside of … Continue reading “44th Annual AIC meeting, May 17, 2016, \u201cAn Unexpected Surface: Research and treatment of a 19th century mounted oyster shell by Froment-Meurice\u201d by Emily Brown”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,32,16],"tags":[76],"class_list":["post-14456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annual-meeting","category-objects","category-specialty-sessions","tag-aics-44th-annual-meeting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/123"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14456\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}