TCX TEXTI LE CONSERVATION NEWSLETTER 1 MT:::::ir'.... >li I .If SPRING 1988 TEXTILE CONSERVATION NEWSLETTER SPRING 1988 ISSUE TABLE OF CONTENTS Page FROM THE EDITORS ..................................... 1 CONSERVATION AT THE ISABELLA STEWART GARDNER MUSEUM .. 1 Marjorie Bullock REPRODUCTION OF AN 18TH CENTURY MALECITE COSTUME Jan Vuori , THE mEATMENT OF A TSIMSHIAN HAT ..................... 7 Phil White· BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE GALLERIA DEL COSTUME ........ 9 Mary Westerman-Bulgarella ANDERSON HOUSE MUSEUM TEXTILE CONSERVATION LAB ....... 13 Kathleen Betts SUPPORT PADDING OF TEXTILE SHOES AT THE BATA SHOE MUSEUM ..................................... 15 Saundra Reiner-Moffatt POULIN BALLROOM SCENE ................................ 18 OTHER PROJECTS AT THE CANADIAN MUSEUM OF CIVILIZATION, OTTAWA ............................... 22 Julie Hughes, Ruth Norton, Han Jongejan A SUPPORT FOR LARGE FLAT ARTIFACTS DURING TREATMENT .. 23 Phil White MANNEQUINS AND HEADFORMS ............................. 24 Lucie Thivierge ALTERATION OF A DRESSMAKERS MANNEQUIN ................ 28 Ruth Mills CONSERVATION INFORMATION NETWORK ..................... 30 Ela Keyserlingk SAVE THE SILKS! PROTECTION FOR WEIGHTED SILKS ....... 31 Merrill Horswill CONSERVATION ALERT: HARMFUL BUTTONS & BUCKLES ....... 34 Nancy Kerr NEWS FROM THE ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM ................... 35 Izabella Krasuski REPORTS ON CONFERENCES, MEETINGS & COURSES ........... 36 Stitching Symposium by Sarah Lowengard ........... 36 Inuit Clothing Conference by Ruth Mills .......... 39 EXHIBITIONS 40/42 IVALU: Traditions of Inuit Clothing 42 A COAT OF MANY COLOURS ............................... 41 Sandra Morton-Weizman CONFERENCES, COURSES & SEMINARS ...................... 43/44 HEALTH AND SAFETY .................................... 44 Arsenic Found in Historic Textiles by Monona Rossol NEW PUBLICATIONS ..................................... 45 POSITIONS AVAILABLE .................................. 47 SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION ................ 48 1 FROM THE EDITORS CONSERVATION AT THE ISABELLA GARDNER MUSEUM As promised, the supplementary, Mannequins for the Royal Ontario Writing this article for the Museum Costume Gal lery by Alexandra Textile Conservation Newsletter Palmer accompanies tATs issue of provides me wltn tne opportunlty to T.N.C. We would like to thank the thank my Canadian hosts for their Royal Ontario Museum for allowing hospitality and many courtesies us to publish the report and extended to me during the workshop Alexandra Palmer for submitting it. presented at Parks Canada in Ottawa It contains excellent and up to last Summer on the "Degradation of date information. No doubt, many Historic Textiles" (sponsored by people will find it extremely IIC-CG). This narrative may reveal useful. just how relevant and germane that Additional copies of Alexandra workshop remains to staff facing Palmer's report are available conservation problems at the through T.C.N. (for more Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, information see page ). Boston, MA. Ground was broken in 1899 to start construction of the Editors Change four-storey building to house the permanent collection that has been Colleen Willson has resigned from on exhibition since the Museum was the position as western editor finished in 1902 and opened to the which she has held for the past public in 1903. For more than 85 four years. We thank Colleen for years, the Gardner Museum has her dedication and support and wish offered the public fine arts, music her well in her new endeavours. (concerts three times a week), and Gail Sundstrom-Niinimaa Textile flowers in a unique setting which Conservator in Calgary, Alberta has last year attracted over 159,000 returned to the editorial board. visitors. It is the achievement of Welcome, Gail! (Please note Gails one person, Isabella Stewart address on last page.) Gardner (1840-1924), who formed the collections, designed the building Submissions Please and, ultimately, endowed it. Upon her death in 1924, the Museum was The editors have been hard at left "for the education and work gathering articles for this enjoyment of the public forever" issue. Interesting submissions and under the terms of her will no have been received from Italy, accessions may be made to add to United States and Canada, and we the collection and the arrangement encourage other subscribers to must remain as she left it. The submit their articles and reports. collection is unusual in its Translation services are available diversity. Spanning thirty if required. centuries, it includes examples of Deadlines for submissions are art from Egypt, the Near and Far always April 30 (Spring Issue) and East, classical Greece and· Italy, October 31 (Fall Issue). Europe, and North and Central America, and is comprised of TCN Index paintings, sculpture, furniture, stained glass, ceramics, metalwork, A complete index of all TCN will textiles, rare books, manuscripts, be published in the Fall '88 prints and drawings. issue. 2 Even the seal that Mrs. Gardner Her predilection was for the designed for her museum is Italian Renaissance, and her vision characteristic- a shield bearing a of a museum was a Venetian palace phoenix, a symbol of immortality, of XVc, with three floors of and the motto - C'est mon plaisir - galleries opening onto a central (It is my pleasure). and skylit courtyard containing both seasonal displays of flowers The President of the Board of and plants, as well as classical Trustees recently wrote: "It Graeco-Roman stone sculpture, a (ISGM) is one of the world's Roman mosaic of the second century greatest private collections--a and a Venetian fifteenth-century Boston treasure, a New England fountain. She herself occupied an treasures a national treasure. The apartment on the fourth floor in Trustees and staff of the Museum Fenway Court, as the Museum became have two principal duties--to see known, until her death. Each that the Museum is used for the gallery has a character of its own. benefit of the public to the The walls of some are hung with maximum possible extent; and to see rich damask or ornately tooled and that the Museum is protected and gilt leather while others have preserved 'forever', for this and rough wood panelling and heavy all succeeding generations. One beamed ceilings. First, there are hundred years, one thousand years the great paintings by such Dutch from now, this collection, and Italian masters as Rembrandt, comprising some of the finest and Vermeer, Giotto and Titian. To most beautiful objects produced by balance the paintings, rooms are the hand and mind of man, must filled with stone and polychrome still be here to enlighten and wood sculptures; inlaid, veneered, inspire the public." These are the stained and/or painted furniture; aspirations and dreams of the textiles including monumental beneficiaries of Mrs. Gardner's tapestries (in both size and legacy--the liabilities are the significance), laces and substance for many a conservator's ecclesiastical costume. The textiles were often hung on walls nightmare. or placed on tables under an array The need to care for the of smaller objects, as Mrs. collection has been recognized by Gardner had arranged them to every generation of Trustees and reflect her concept of a grand staff since Mrs. Gardner's death house where people have lived for almost sixty-four years ago. generations surrounded by things Annual reports published over the that they cherished. Built with a preceding sixty-three years concept of eternity, yet rooted in invariably mention at least one the fin-de-siocle, it has the major treatment having been founder's forceful sense of what a undertaken for either a painting or museum should be. It has been a tapestry. George L. Stout, one noted that this arrangement affords of the founding fathers of modern the visitor little help in locating conservation, became the first the objects considered most conservator at the Gardner Museum important. Often they are not in 1934, and was later to become given a conspicuous position and its director (1955-1970). He they are placed with little installed a humidification system relation to their historical or at the Museum shortly after he geographical origins. The result became di rector, long before other is a set of rooms that have a museums had seriously considered personal, informal character. 3 the problems of climate control. generated interest not only within Mr. Stout also established a all departments of this museum but professional textile conservation also within the museum profession department and hired its first at large. conservator in 1964. In tradition of protecting and preserving the As one might expect, the collection, the Museum's environmental survey is addressing administration is considering how those areas that one would best to upgrade conservation anticipate being potential and facilities to meet the increasing probable sources of hazard and/or needs of a permanently displayed pollution. Consultants have been collection susceptible to involved with the survey either environmental damage and to provide directly or indirectly; among them better climate control and have been bio-chemists, industrial storage. hygienists and engineers, an entomologist, conservators and The textile authority, Adolph S. conservation scientists and sales Cavallo, wrote in his Introduction representatives for equipment. The to the Museum's Textile Catalogue, challange will be in interpreting published in 1986: for Fenway the data now being collected in Court did not survive the ravages