Our department has owned a Compact Phoenix Nd:YAG laser for several years now and we have successfully used it to clean objects like this trio of birds for our Middle East Galleries. While there are a lot of possible applications, we have found the laser to be especially effective for cleaning stone objects with coatings, stains, and surface grime that are not easily removed using other tried and true cleaning methods including solvents, steam, and gels.
Did somebody say “stone objects with coatings, stains, and surface grime”? Because we have tons of those (literally) in our Conservation Lab Annex (CLA) where we are working on monumental projects for the Ancient Egypt and Nubia Galleries. But the last time we held a laser training session was before we hired our CLA team. Lasers are not found in all conservation labs, so it is not unusual for experienced conservators to have little to no experience with lasers.
A small Egyptian limestone stela mid-treatment. Many cleaning tests were carried out on this piece with very little success in removing some of the grime and stains. It is a good candidate for some laser cleaning tests.
In order to ensure a safe set-up and to get everyone trained on the equipment, we brought in Philadelphia-based conservator Adam Jenkins to provide the team with a full day of training. Adam specializes in laser cleaning and also conducted our last training session at the Museum in 2017.
Adam demonstrating use of the laser
After a classroom session covering the fundamentals and science of lasers, and the necessary safety protocols and PPE, we moved to the lab to try the laser on a few objects. We had success with several, which is very promising! The team is now set up to continue laser testing and cleaning on their own. We are grateful to Adam for his expertise and support and for this professional development opportunity. We are excited to incorporate this tool into the work out at CLA!
CLA conservation technician Kyle Norris testing the laser on an Egyptian stela
Working from home – this is not a foreign concept for many of us since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in the US earlier this year. But how do conservators – museum staff who regularly work in close contact with museum artifacts – work from home?
It turns out, there are a lot of things we can do. We are, after all, creative people, and adaptable, and often experienced in working in less-than-ideal circumstances. We also always have a backlog of job-related tasks that are easy to push aside while we are working at the Museum, like labeling and archiving photos and improving our documentation standards. To give you a glimpse into how some of us in the Conservation Department have been working from home, I asked several of my colleagues to weigh in:
From conservator Julie Lawson:
As was the case for many, working from home began with a “crash course” in navigating new (to me) adventures in virtual meetings, guest-lecturing, remote desktops, and remote IT colleagues. The pause in an often relentless exhibit schedule has given me a chance to catch up on some old record-keeping, and many current resources that would likely have been missed such as international web presentations of conservation projects. More lately, I’ve been engaged in what it means to be personally anti-racist, the impacts of racism on museums fields and individuals, and what I can and should do about it. Listening online to Black museum directors, curators, and archaeologists, for instance, is giving me a new and necessary perspective to take to work in an anthropology museum and beyond.
Of course, a thread running through the last several months has been presentations, documents, protocols, questions and updates on Covid-19’s effect on our and other museums, the Penn campus and life in general. To take breaks from all that and take advantage hours spent not commuting to the Museum, I’ve been expanding my garden beds and trying out new things like growing 6 foot tall sunflowers from seeds, followed by some outdoor ‘conservation treatment’ with a recycled spray bottle of homemade insecticidal soap solution. Turns out that spotted lantern fly nymphs are a major agent of garden plant deterioration!
A goldfinch perched atop one of Julie’s impressive sunflowers
From conservator Tessa de Alarcón:
Like everyone I have been entering old treatment reports into KE EMu, our collections database, and doing a lot of data clean-up. Some of the data clean-up included making sure X-ray images in EMu have the proper metadata (the red arrows in the images below indicate a metadata fix that I made to one image). Without this fix, these images were not pushing to the public website properly.
Same image, before (left) and after (right) a metadata fix
Another project I worked on from home was processing some RTI data. In my examination of this ancient Egyptian bronze plaque (E11528), I observed that it has modern paint over the ancient inscription. In weighing a decision about whether or not to remove the modern paint, I told the curators that I could do RTI on the plaque to better understand how legible the inscription would be without the paint. The RTI images do seem to show where the paint does not line up well with the actual incised inscription.
An RTI image of the bronze plaque, E11528, showing the object’s surface topography
From conservator Julia Commander:
Working from home is a great opportunity to dive into materials from related fields – even aerospace design! Webinars and videos like this one, showing how to trim carbon fiber components with an oscillating multitool, help as we develop protocols for making large-scale interfaces for Ancient Egyptian column drums.
Some of our family members don’t care what we’re working on, as long as we can do it from home!
From conservator Jessica Betz Abel:
During the quarantine, I’ve mostly been striving to make perfectly symmetrical Hungarian pizzelles using my grandmother’s handwritten recipe. When I wasn’t gently tapping off the excess crust around the sides of the pizzelles, I spent the early part of the summer on my presentation concerning the desalination of Egyptian limestone using agarose gel for the American Institute of Conservation‘s 2020 virtual annual meeting.
I’ll take the pizzelle, but I’ll pass on flaking limestone.
From Head Conservator Lynn Grant:
During the time the Museum was closed, I got to go in several times to check on the condition of the artifacts on display and in storage (this was just an extra check: our Security staff did regular rounds all through the time we were closed). With lights off to protect the artifacts, it was a spooky flashlight experience in places.
Lynn’s flashlight illuminates a case of ancient Egyptian animal mummies in the Museum’s Secrets and Science gallery
Of course, the Penn Museum is now open to the public, and many of us are getting back into a routine that takes us to work in person several days a week! So we have less time for baking and gardening, but we are happy to be back with the collection and we look forward to continuing to update the blog with our ongoing work.
Documentation of conservation treatments undertaken in the lab is a very important part of what we in the conservation department do at the museum. One of the main reasons we document our treatments is so that conservators in the future don’t have to try to figure out what was done to an object. Instead those future conservators can read our reports and start off knowing the treatment history.
An array of treatment reports, and log book entries, from the conservation department at the Penn Museum
We are also sometimes those future conservators, looking back at previous treatments. This means that not only can we see an object’s treatment history, we have the opportunity to evaluate and learn from the decisions made by conservators decades ago. Some of these treatments were successful, and some were not. Now we know to avoid those treatments that clearly did not work.
I recently completed a treatment on an object that is a good example of this process. E11151 is a carved wooden figure from Nubia. It was treated before I worked on it by a conservator in the 1970’s. The photo below is how the object looked when it entered the lab at the end of last year.
Before treatment image of E11151 taken in 2019
In the case of this object, it was noted in the 1970’s as having a slightly powdery surface. The conservator conducting the treatment decided to apply a consolidation method that is frequently used on waterlogged wood: immersion in a solution of PEG (polyethylene glycol). PEG treatments are still done today and are very effective at consolidating and stabilizing waterlogged wood before it dries out. But because of this treatment and others done at the museum around this same time period, we have learned that consolidation with PEG is not effective on dry wood, even if it once was waterlogged. E11151 was dry wood and did not come from a waterlogged context.
E11205, E11187, E11203, E11151 E11151 is on the far right. This publication photo was taken before the object was treated in the 1970’s.
The photo above is a publication photo of the object before it was treated in the 1970’s. While there is no photography with the 1970’s treatment report, there is a sketch which suggests that the object looked similar to this photo when it entered the lab at that time. As you can see there are quite a few differences in the object’s appearance as it entered the lab in 2019 and how it looked before it was treated in the 1970’s.
Before treatment photo of E11151. The red arrow is pointing to an area of thick, white, and hard high molecular weight PEG and the blue arrow is pointing to soft and sticky low molecular weight PEG
Two different molecular weights of PEG were used on this object, a hard high molecular weight one that was used to consolidate the powdery wood and looked white on the surface where it was very thick, and a low molecular weight one that was used to join pieces of the object together and left the surface tacky and sticky. The sticky PEG also trapped a lot of dirt and dust on the surface of the object.
After treatment detail of the top of E11151
The detail above shows the top of the head of the object. The report from the 1970’s states that during treatment the object began to crack and fragment. PEG is typically dissolved in water or ethanol. Both solvents were used in the PEG treatment of this object. These two solvents can be mixed together and during a normal PEG treatment the wet wood starts with PEG in water and then moves to PEG in ethanol: this helps start the drying process. As the waterlogged wood is also already wet, the PEG can penetrate fully into the swollen wood. However, in the case of dry wood, these solvents (ethanol typically has some water in it) introduce moisture into the object, and it starts to swell as wood is very responsive to moisture. It then has to dry out again after the treatment, causing the wood to shrink. This is stressful for the object. This stress is what likely caused the cracking documented in the report and visible in the image above.
E11151, after treatment photo from the treatment completed in 2020
Here you can see what the object looks like now that I have finished my treatment. Consolidation is a very permanent and tricky to reverse treatment, even when adhesives that remain soluble, like PEG, are used. There is currently no way to remove the PEG from this object. All I have done is reduce the PEG on the surface by cleaning it with ethanol. I also used the previous documentation to figure out where small detached fragments went so that it looks more like it did originally. While the treatment that was undertaken in the 1970’s seems to be over-treatment as it caused new problems, some more severe than the problems the object had to begin with, I do also want to recognize that it is because of past experiments like this one that I know not to use PEG on dry wood.
Because wholesale consolidation is a fairly permanent and risky treatment, I think long and hard when I choose a consolidant. I also remain aware that there is a chance that someday, some future conservator, will deem some of my treatments mistakes as well. Hopefully my mistakes will be ones that they can learn from too.
To learn more about PEG treatments for waterlogged organic materials, check out these links:
by Anna O’Neill, Julia Commander, and Jessica Betz Abel
Hello from the Penn Museum Conservation Lab Annex (CLA)! Since Lynn’s introduction, we’ve had a little bit of time to settle into our new, off-site facility and get started on some seriously big projects. Our primary task here is working on architectural elements that were part of the palace of the Pharaoh Merenptah, who ruled Egypt from Memphis from 1213–1203 BCE. We have doorways, windows, and other objects from the palace which will be displayed in the new Ancient Egypt & Nubia Galleries to give visitors the experience of being in an ancient Egyptian building. But first, we have to put them together!
The warehouse section of CLA, with pallets of fragments from the Merenptah palace complex.
We have four doorways that will go into the galleries, all of which are very large and in many pieces. They are made of limestone and intricately carved, with traces of inlay and paint. Our first project is Doorway 1, which will be about 12 feet tall once it’s all together. It’s never been displayed before, but it was partially treated in the past. Some fragments are joined together with adhesive and metal pins, and we can tell that some of the decorated surfaces were coated with a consolidant. The fragments are also very dark and dirty from almost 100 years in storage.
Doorway 1 is in thirteen major pieces, which were all on different pallets when they were moved to CLA. With a little bit of effort and a lot of maneuvering with pallet jacks, we grouped the fragments together. It was very satisfying to figure out how all the pieces fit together and form a door!
Doorway 1 coming together on pallets in the lab section of CLA.
Since we’re using Doorway 1 as our pilot project to figure out how we’ll treat the rest of the palace objects, we’ve spent a lot of time testing different conservation approaches. Since the doorway is discolored with dirt and one or more old coatings, we’ve been experimenting with gel cleaning and found two methods that work well for what we need – hot agar and Nanorestore gels® Peggy. We’ve talked about using other kinds of gel before.
Agar is a product of red seaweed and contains a polysaccharide called agarose. When it’s dissolved in water and heated, agarose forms long molecular chains – that means that when it sets, agar becomes a rigid gel that can be peeled up as a sheet without leaving problematic residues behind. The long agarose chains create pockets that hold solvents on the surface of the object, allowing them to work on grime or coatings without soaking in too deeply. You can add different cleaning solutions to agar, but plain deionized water gave us the results we wanted. We dissolved agar in deionized water and heated it in the microwave to form the solution, then poured it directly onto the surface of the stone and allowed it to cool. Applying it as a liquid means that the gel conforms well to the irregularities in the object and lets us get into all the nooks and crannies.
Action shots showing the application of agar to the surface of Doorway 1.
The Peggy 6 gel is made of poly (vinyl acetate) and comes as a thin polymer sheet. It feels a little like the gummy hands you can stick on windows – stretchy and flexible but strong. Like agar, the Peggy gel can be used with different cleaning solutions but we stuck with deionized water. The gel is laid on the surface of the stone to let the water do its work on the grime. Because the Peggy is a stretchy sheet, it can skim right over delicate carvings that might contain pigment. Another advantage of the Peggy gel is that it’s reusable – we just rinse it out in deionized water and use it again.
The Peggy 6 gel in action.
To clean Doorway 1 we used a combination of the agar and
Peggy gels. Both gels soften the dirt and coating, and often looks pretty grimy
when they’re peeled up. Once the gel is removed, the stone is wiped with cotton
and more deionized water to remove even more dirt. We were pretty pleased with
the difference between the cleaned and dirty surfaces, and using the gels meant
that the process was much more efficient and gentler on the stone than using
swabs.
Other parts of the treatment include reversing old repairs
(or deciding when to leave them be), assembling fragments, and figuring out how
to display the doorway in the gallery. We’ll check back in later with more
monumental updates!
Durante el pasado mes, he tenido el privilegio de poder trabajar en un cartonaje egipcio, y ¡no menos es la suerte que tengo de poder escribir este artículo en mi lengua materna! Me han consentido mucho en este equipo.
Poco o nada sabemos de la procedencia de la obra, fue una donación a la colección egipcia del museo por parte del Sr. Thomas A. Scott en el siglo XIX, y es un estupendo ejemplar para estudiar tanto la técnica del cartonaje como el tipo de intervenciones que se hacían en el pasado.
La nomenclatura es una derivación del francés “cartonnage”, término usado en egiptología para hacer referencia a la técnica en la que finas capas de yeso se aplicaban sobre un soporte que podía ser fibra (lino) o papiro, permitiendo la flexibilidad suficiente para moldear y obtener las formas deseadas de la silueta del difunto, algo parecido al papel maché para que os hagáis una idea. Sobre este aparejo de yeso se elaboraban la policromía y el dorado.
Esta pieza ocupaba la zona pectoral de la momia. La imagen representa una figura alada con el disco solar sobre la cabeza, posiblemente Nut, quien junto a su hermano Geb eran los padres de Isis, cuya historia es central en la resurrección de los extintos.
En cuanto al proceso de restauración de esta obra, lo primero que nos llamó la atención fue el soporte adherido al reverso, que no formaba parte del original, y por otra parte el gran número de fracturas y pérdidas que presentaba el anverso.
Por la tipología de esta obra sabemos que no era plana y que tenía cierta curvatura, pues su función era decorar y descansar en el pecho de la momia. En este caso, parece que la persona que intervino la pieza en el pasado no tuvo en cuenta esto y añadió un cartón con mucho adhesivo en el reverso, de manera que la pieza ¡quedó completamente aplanada!
En este tratamiento de conservación lo fundamental era eliminar ese soporte trasero para relajar la obra, pese a que esto supusiera que los fragmentos antes unidos quedaran sueltos y desprendidos. Este paso se hizo mecánicamente con la ayuda de un bisturí y bajo las lentes del microscopio.
Se quiso evitar cualquier contacto con un medio acuoso, pues ante una obra tan frágil cualquier fluctuación de humedad podría afectar negativamente al soporte, a las capas pictóricas y al dorado.
Con el paso de los días se pudo observar cómo cada fragmento iba recuperando su forma primigenia, recobrando cierta curvatura y relajándose. Esto determinó el resto del proceso, pues se decidió no forzar la unión de las diferentes áreas. Cada una presentaba en este momento un diferente perfil y tratar de reunirlas provocaría mucha tensión innecesaria.
Se consolidaron y protegieron todas las zonas por el reverso y se estudió la mejor manera de realizar un soporte para cada una de ellas que permitiese también su futuro montaje y exposición.
Tras muchas pruebas, preguntas y mucha paciencia de mis colegas, se decidió que lo mejor sería hacer tres soportes para las tres áreas con resina epoxídica de madera; de esta manera cada uno soportaría un fragmento, un planteamiento respetuoso para la obra que nos hace entender que el paso del tiempo y las intervenciones del pasado dejan su huella.
Photos showing various trials for constructing a support for the fragile cartonnage pieces. The support in the third image (far right, made of wood epoxy) was the winner.
Tengo que agradecer a Jane Williams, jefa de conservación y restauración del “Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco” por sus consejos y su ayuda inestimable para el tratamiento de esta obra que tanto respeto me causaba.
Con mucha gratitud por haber tenido la suerte de trabajar con tan generosas personas y haber aprendido tanto en este fantástico proyecto, ¡espero algún día poder ver este cartonaje expuesto en el museo!
Este proyecto ha sido posible en parte por el Instituto de Servicios de Museos y Bibliotecas.
I am an undergraduate Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology student at Bryn Mawr College and this past summer, I began as a conservation intern within the Penn Museum’s Museum Practice Program. I am continuing this work through an independent study in the Museum’s Conservation Department this Fall. During my time here, I have treated a group of Egyptian faience shabtis.
Egyptian faience shabti prior to treatment.
Shabtis are statuettes that were made to be placed within ancient Egyptian burials for the purpose of assisting the deceased in the afterlife. The shabtis I worked on are made of Egyptian faience, a material made from silica, alkaline salts such as plant ash or natron, lime, and metallic colorants. The faience could be hand-shaped or pressed into molds, that when fired, would self-glaze. Although faience was made in many different colors, it is most often associated with a bright blue/turquoise color (using a copper colorant) as seen in many amulets, beads, and figurines.
The specific group of shabtis I worked with this summer differed in size, shape, and color. Many were previously repaired and some of these old repairs were failing. Unfortunately, these objects had become disassociated from their accession numbers and records, so there is no information on their provenance or previous conservation treatments. I was tasked with documenting their condition, and treating those that were broken or in need of re-treatment, either to remove failing old adhesives or remending those that were previously mended but now broken. As adhesives age, especially those used in the early 20th century, they can become discolored, may shrink or expand, or may become stronger. All of these conditions pose problems to the objects that can affect their future stability and ‘health’.
Since no record of the treatments existed, I used various methods to determine what worked best to remove the adhesives that were used. First, I used UV light to identify the type of adhesives. After observing that it was possibly shellac or animal glue, I spot-tested the adhesives using a variety of solvents. I found that acetone, ethanol, and deionized water worked best, so I left the shabtis in acetone vapor chambers for a few hours to allow the adhesive to dissolve.
After the old joins were taken down, one particular shabti caught my eye immediately. This lighter green-blue shabti had metal adhering one of the joins, with some adhesive underneath as well. After consulting with various conservators about this unexpected find and with help from the handheld pXRF instrument, we found that it was lead solder that was used to join these pieces. This is a very unusual (and outdated) technique for mending pottery and as head conservator Lynn Grant said, it’s likely whoever treated it last “struck when the solder was hot”. In other words, the person who last treated this object might have used the solder because it was nearby and ready to use. This conservation method was not the best way to mend the shabti and doesn’t reflect current methods we use. The body, or core, of faience objects is very porous and absorbs whatever adhesive is applied. When the solder was applied it seeped into the body of the body of the object, and made it very difficult to remove.
Lead solder between first and second fragment (top). 60X magnification of the lead solder (bottom).
Though this conservation treatment doesn’t affect our understanding of the shabti, it got me thinking about how conservation ethics and practices have changed over time. As stewards of cultural heritage, conservators have the important job of fixing objects in a way that is reversible and that doesn’t compromise the object’s cultural integrity or future use. Conservators do their best to maintain the integrity of objects, for both research purposes and to preserve a piece of the culture these objects came from for future study and display. This means that conservators must also apply these ethics to objects that were treated before these standards were enforced, and take caution to prevent any further loss of information no matter how small.
With the shabti group I worked on, I used a technique that is commonly used to repair porous or low-fired ceramics. Before using an adhesive to repair the fragments, I applied a low concentration adhesive solution on the break edges to create a less porous surface and to prevent the adhesive from seeping into the body of the faience. I then used a higher concentration adhesive to put the pieces together. This specific treatment is reversible and will ideally last a century or more!
Mending artifacts can be a slow process in which a conservator attaches one piece a day. While working on this small group of shabtis for many weeks, I’ve grown very attached to them. They are all unique pieces with their own quirks, and I can’t wait to see them back together and ready for future use.
Shabti group after treatment (left). Shabti after treatment (right).
Penn Museum’s Conservation Department is charged with reviewing, documenting, and stabilizing every artifact that goes on exhibition in the Museum. Most of the time, the objects tend to be in the ‘smaller than a breadbox’ (if you don’t recognize that category, check out this article) and are dealt with fairly expeditiously, especially once our labs were renovated in 2014. Before that, larger objects were a challenge, which was one factor in turning a gallery space into the Artifact Lab. Even with the renovated lab, working on large objects (large textiles, eagle feather bonnets, carved elephant tusks) requires negotiating with colleagues – or sometimes just having a group session to free up the space as quickly as possible.
Four conservators working on one carved elephant tusk to reduce the time it monopolized that working space.
But then there’s the ‘Wayyyyy bigger than a breadbox category”, aka monumental artifacts – too big to bring into lab. Sometimes we’ve dealt with this by bringing the lab to the artifact (Tang Taizong, Buddhist murals, Kaipure, the Sphinx).
Conservator Julie Lawson cleaning the Tang Taizong horse reliefs in the gallery.
For the renovation of our Ancient Egyptian and Nubian galleries, though, the sheer number of monumental artifacts, including parts of a Pharaonic palace was (nearly) overwhelming.
Fortunately, planning began early. When we assessed all the various pieces, we came out with three categories: 1) can fit into lab; 2) too large for lab but not too large to leave building; and 3) too large for lab and too large to leave building. This last category included pieces that were too large and/or heavy for our current freight elevator and loading dock. We ended up closing the Museum’s Lower Egyptian Gallery in the summer of 2018 to permit the objects in Category 3 to be treated in situ.
NYU Conservation Center graduate student Adrienne Gendron working on a column drum from the Palace Complex of Merenptah in our Lower Egyptian gallery.
This was not an ideal situation, not only because it deprived visitors of access to those objects longer than we hoped; but also because the space is not very suitable and would be adjacent to or part of a construction site for the next 5 years. However, you can’t argue with physics. Well, you can, you just won’t win.
For artifacts in Category 2, we needed to find a space where we could store them and do the necessary conservation and reconstruction for the new installation. This was not an easy search and the University’s Facilities and Real Estate Services (FRES) were instrumental in helping us with the hunt. We needed a facility that was large enough to store the objects; had ceilings high enough to accommodate the re-erection of the large architectural elements; was secure or could be made so; could be adapted as a conservation work space; and was within an easy commute from the Museum. The hunt was long and hard: either the ceiling wasn’t high enough or the distance from the Museum too far or the neighborhood was too iffy, or there weren’t big enough loading docks to load/unload our monumental babies.
We finally located a space we agreed could be made to work – about 50 minutes from the Museum but it was big enough, had the ceiling height, had three loading docks – one of which was big enough to bring the truck inside (you really don’t want to be unloading Egyptian limestone in the rain), and it had areas that could be adapted as lab/office spaces.
Home sweet warehouse. This shot shows our storage area as we first saw it (left) and as it was when we took possession (right).
We started moving artifacts out to the Conservation Lab Annex (CLA) last year and began serious conservation work in September. I’ll let our CLA team introduce you to their space and their work in upcoming blog posts.
We have been notably quiet on this blog lately, but that doesn’t mean that we haven’t been making a lot of noise elsewhere!
Project Conservator Anna O’Neill Alexander uses a PaleoTool to remove old restoration plaster that surrounds an ancient Egyptian limestone fragment. The limestone fragment is part of a column from the palace complex of Merenptah, which dates to 1224-1204 BCE. See the (noisy) video footage of her at work here.
We also have some BIG imminent deadlines, which have kept us very busy, and some of our monumental projects are so BIG that they can’t even be worked on within the Museum building. More on that soon.
All of that aside, we continue to work on projects in the Artifact Lab, that are not as big, necessarily, but are just as important. Most of the artifacts we are working on are to prepare for the future installation of our new Ancient Egypt and Nubia Galleries.
Project Conservator Teresa Jimenez-Millas is currently working on the coffin and mummy of Petiese in the Artifact Lab. Here she is using an adhesive solution to stabilize the painted surface of Petiese’s coffin lid. Petiese was an Egyptian priest who lived during the Late Period (664 – 332 BCE).
To hear more about all these projects in REAL TIME, check out our 1-hour #AskAConservator Q&A session next Monday, November 4th, on the Penn Museum’s twitter account, or visit us when the Museum is open, where EVERY day is Ask a Conservator Day!
Professional conservators generally specialize by material type. All the conservators at the Penn Museum specialize in objects, which includes a wide variety of materials from stone and ceramics to leather and wood. However, occasionally materials come across our desks that fall outside our areas of expertise. The Penn Museum recently acquired twelve Indian paintings on paper which need to be hinged so they can be safely handled by researchers. Because paper is a separate sub-specialty of conservation, we called on our friends at the Steven Miller Conservation Lab at the Penn Libraries’ Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts to help us with this task. This is not the first time we have taken advantage of our book and paper conservation colleagues right here on campus – follow this link to read about a recent treatment carried out in their labs on a parchment scroll.
In the case of the hinging project, our Penn Libraries conservation colleagues came to us – a couple weeks ago, Elizabeth McDermott, Tessa Gadomski, and Sarah Reidell visited our lab to provide a workshop on how to properly hinge paper objects for display.
Penn Museum conservators and interns listening to Liz and Tessa give instruction.
Hinging is a process in which small strips of paper are
carefully adhered to the back of a work of art on paper in order to secure it
within a window mat. It results in a strong and secure housing solution that
ensures the safety of the object for storage and display.
One of the twelve works on paper that needs to be hinged (2017-22-13).
The most common and secure method of hinging is called a T
hinge, which is composed of two strips of Japanese tissue paper. First, a strip
of paper is carefully cut to size and a small amount of reversible adhesive is
applied. Then, the strip is applied to the back of the top edge of the work and
allowed to dry under weights.
The first strips in place along the top edge of a sample object.
Next, the work is flipped face-up and positioned on its
backing mat. This is the trickiest part of the process, as the work must be
perfectly positioned so that when the window mat is closed, it appears
centered. Then, a second strip is adhered over the first strip and onto the
backing board to secure the work in place.
The second strips applied over the first strips and onto the backing board, securing the work in place.
Because conservation is a small field, people often call on
colleagues to for advice when it comes to different areas of expertise. We’re
excited to apply our new skill to the twelve Indian paintings to ensure their
long-term safety and preservation. Hinging can be a tricky business, but after
our workshop we’re up for the challenge!
The first Indian work on paper we successfully hinged using techniques from the workshop (2017-22-20). When executed properly, hinges can allow a work to be flipped up so the back can be viewed.
I am a graduate student at the Conservation Center at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University, and I’m spending the majority of my summer here at the Penn Museum as part of my training to become a professional conservator. In late June, I took a break from the Artifact Lab and traveled to Villa La Pietra in Florence along with fellow classmate Andy Wolf to work on a conservation project.
Villa La Pietra houses an expansive and diverse collection that came into the ownership of New York University from the Acton family in 1994. The Actons were art collectors from England and the US who lived in Florence from the early 1900s onward. Every year, NYU students from a variety of programs travel to Florence to work on educational projects at the estate.
The main building at Villa La Pietra, where the collections and the conservation studio are housed.
For the span of a week, Andy and I worked under the supervision of Pamela Hatchfield (Robert P. and Carol T. Henderson Head of Objects Conservation at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston) to perform a complex treatment on a 17th century majolica pharmacy jar. The jar had fallen off a high bookshelf during an earthquake in 2013 and broken into 40 major pieces and innumerable tiny flakes and chips. Conservators often need to differentiate between different types of physical changes that may occur during an object’s lifetime and may choose not to intervene if an object is stable. In this case, because the damage caused by the earthquake was very recent and extensive, we decided to proceed with reconstructing the jar and minimizing the damage as much as possible.
The main fragments of the pharmacy jar. The many fragments and chips associated with the jar.
After documenting the damage and finding the locations of each major fragment, it was time to assemble. Andy and I realized that because of the geometries of the fragments, we would have to build most of the jar in one session so the adhesive would remain tacky enough to make necessary adjustments. So, after some deep breathing exercises and words of encouragement from our supervisor, we began the assembly process.
The first pieces assembled (left) with the remaining fragments ready to go (right).
Typically, conservators like to
reassemble broken ceramics from the bottom up. That was not possible in this
case because half of the jar’s foot had been completely shattered in the
earthquake damage. Instead, Andy and I decided to assemble the piece upside
down starting from the rim.
The assembly of the main body of the vessel took about 3.5 hours from start to finish. Andy and I worked closely together during the entire process, using pieces of black electrical tape to secure the pieces in place while they dried. We were fortunate that the outer surface was stable enough that the tape could be used safely.
The pot nearly assembled. The stretchy black electrical tape assures that the joins stay tight while the adhesive dries and can be safely removed after drying is complete.
After the main part of the assembly, it was time to work on the shattered foot. This was the most challenging part of the entire treatment. After many hours of searching through a sea of tiny fragments, I was able to reconstruct the profile of the missing outer edge of the foot from sixteen individual pieces.
About one half of the outer edge of the foot was shattered during the earthquake (in this image, the jar is oriented upside down).The reconstructed outer profile of the missing part of the foot, which was previously in sixteen tiny pieces.
Andy and I worked together to take a mold of the intact side of the foot to use as a guide for matching the curve of the shattered side. Then, we put the missing outer profile in place, using a stable fill material to bridge the gap between the outer edge and the interior of the break line.
The reconstructed profile of the foot in place. The white material is a reversible facing we applied to protect the delicate fragments during assembly.
There’s only so much that can be accomplished in a week, and by the end of our trip Andy and I had just begun filling the remaining losses. The pharmacy jar will be waiting for another team of students next summer, who will take it to completion by disguising the cracks and losses associated with the earthquake damage.
The reassembled pharmacy jar at the end of our trip.
Somehow, on top of our work with
the pharmacy jar, we managed to visit six museums and churches! And, of course,
we ate plenty of delicious pizza, pasta, and gelato. I’m so grateful for the
opportunity to work at the Villa this summer, and I’m excited to return in
future years.
From left to right: Pamela Hatchfield, Adrienne Gendron, and Andy Wolf with the reassembled pharmacy jar.
