Museum Textile Services recently completed the conservation of a war bond banner that will be featured in the Manchester Historic Association's fall exhibit, "It's Showtime! A History of Manchester's Theaters," on view from September 17 through December 19, 2016.

According to the National WWII Museum website, the US Treasury produced a series of war bonds that Americans could purchase during the war. A war bond cost $18.75 and ten years later could be redeemed for $25, making it an investment in both the country's and the buyer's future. Posters and other advertisements such as the Manchester banner could be seen everywhere. Celebrities participated widely in the effort to encourage sales of war bonds—war-time shows by Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Bette Davis, and Marlene Dietrich are still legendary.

In a side-by-side comparison of the top-right corner before and after conservation, it is clear how much work was done to clean, flatten, consolidate, back, infill, and tone this area of damage. Without the combined efforts of textile and paintings conservators, this banner would hot have been suitable for inclusion in the exhibition. Thanks to all who contributed to this satisfying project.
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This summer, MTS welcomes two new team members and two returning friends to our diverse staff.

Within the last four months Museum Textile Services has received four Grenfell Industries hooked mats for conservation. Made of silk and other fine fabrics hooked onto a burlap base, these mats can be circular or rectangular. They feature Arctic animals, depictions of indigenous and local people, and other picturesque scenes of life in Labrador and Newfoundland. These mats are not only wonderful textiles, but also speak volumes about the distinctive maritime culture of these northern provinces during the first half of the 20th century.

​The economy of Newfoundland and Labrador has long been heavily dependent on the fishing industry. All of a family’s income traditionally came from money made by men during the fishing season. This money would have to last a family for an entire year, and by 1900 many families were living in poverty as it was becoming increasingly hard to live comfortably off this income. An Englishman named Wilfred Grenfell established hospitals and industrial missions at various small coastal villages where he and his employees taught local women to make different crafts to sell to the public in Canada and the United States. The craft of rug hooking from scraps of fabric had long been practiced in Newfoundland and Labrador by local women for domestic use, but beginning in 1912 Grenfell began capitalizing on the market potential of these mats.

​Two of the mats we received are small circular "table mats" and feature a polar bear and a sled dog. These mats were intended to be used as pot holders or coasters and were popular products of Grenfell industries, where they were often hooked by young girls to introduce them to the craft of mat hooking. 

​Museum Textile Services recently conserved and reframed an exquisite early 19th century embroidery of a young woman visiting a caged bird.  In the tradition of mourning embroideries, the maker first painted portions of the image onto silk and then used satin stitches and French knots to embellish it. After completion, the silk canvas was stitched to a larger piece of cotton to allow it to wrap around a shingle of wood. The textile was then laced with strips of cotton and jute to maintain tension, which remains good even 200 years later. The textile was framed behind reverse-painted glass in a gilded wood frame secured with hand-cut nails. The mounting and framing system is likely original.

The embroidery itself is in excellent condition. The primary condition issue was the state of the reverse-painted glass. The black paint was no longer adhering to the glass and the flecks of paint had migrated throughout the frame and onto the textile. Another major concern was the wood shingle, which had broken in half and was in direct contact with the textile. Because it is rare for original framing systems such as this to survive, we devised a strategy to leave the textile laced around this wood. The frame was left as-is with its worn gold finish, but the reverse-painted glass was sent to specialist Linda Abrams, who was able to restore the black areas while leaving the original gold and silver paint.

First, the embroidery, glass, and frame were surface cleaned with a high efficiency micro-vacuum to remove dust and paint flakes. The cotton and jute lacings were released from the cotton margin at the top of the embroidery, which was in an advanced state of deterioration. This allowed a piece of four-ply acid-free mat board the size of the wood shingle to be slid between the embroidery and the wood, providing a solid surface and a barrier between the textile and the wood. A new strip of archival twill tape was hand stitched to the failing cotton along the top edge of the textile. The cotton and jute strands were then sewn to the new piece of twill tape, restoring the tension around the board. 

​Prior to reframing, a barrier of photo-tex paper was cut to the shape of the newly-painted black area on the back of the glass. This ensures that the relatively fresh paint would not bond to the back of the textile as it ages. The glass, followed by the embroidery, were placed into the frame and pinned with stainless steel headless brads. A two-ply acid-free backing board was placed in the frame next, which filled the remaining frame space without pushing unnecessarily against the back of the lacings. The frame was sealed with a barrier of marvelseal. The original hanging hardware was reused and fitted with a new coated wire. 

It was such a pleasure to conserve this beautiful embroidery. We hope that it will see another 200 years of history. 

​While we make Andover Figures manikins at Museum Textile Services for a variety of historic costume, some garments require an entirely different approach. One look at this large, heavy, beautiful, and multi-material African costume confirms its special display needs. Called an Egun, the bright and visually energetic costume was commissioned in 2015 for the permanent collection at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts. After surface cleaning and documenting this complicated garment, our challenge was to make a safe and sturdy storage/exhibition mount. 

​Egungun are costumes worn in masquerades, religious festivals, and funeral services in Yoruba culture. The Wheaton Egun was made in Benin specifically for the college's permanent collection, but many West African countries produce similar masquerade and religious garments. Seeing this type of costume in motion is really the best way to understand how it works. Around minute 1:45 of the video below, you can see the first of many Benin Egun of similar construction to the one we recently conserved.

The dancing of the performers is particularly impressive considering these richly decorated garments weigh about 60 pounds. As seen in the video, the performer looks through a loosely woven mesh, covered by cowrie shells, and each costume is decorated and constructed in a unique hand-crafted fashion. The wearer’s entire body is covered during the performance. The under-garment of the Wheaton Egun is a deep indigo blue jumpsuit that covers the performer from the head to the fingertips and down over the toes. A pair of matched decorated shoes completes the costume. Looking out from under the hanging panels at the top is a stylized wooden face, painted bright yellow. 

Conservators Camille Breeze, Morgan Carbone, Megan Creamer and Cara Jordan built a custom mount that resembles a small table inside a plastic crate. Due to space limitations, the mount measures just 55 inches tall--shorter than the dancer who wore it. Made of poplar plywood wood wrapped in Tyvek, the galvanized reinforcements and bolts allow the mount to be easily disassembled, or affixed to a platform for exhibition. Two Ethafoam crescents on top of the mount cushion and balance the heavy wooden disk, much as it would have been balanced on a dancer's back or head. The costume has nearly two dozen fabric panels, each of which we padded with archival polyfelt and rolled to fit on the base of the mount. The enclosure consists of corrugated polypropylene panels connected to the base with Velcro, and a removable Tyvek cover. The base of the mount is bolted to a dolly for easier transport. 

​For more historic context, take a look at the historic visual culture of Benin and much older Egungun costumes in the online collections of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. 

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​As cellulosic textiles age, hydroxyl groups (-OH) are converted to carbonyl groups (=O), which contribute to a dingy brown or yellow color. The chemical process known as reduction adds electrons to the cellulose fibers, stabilizing their molecular weight and returning carbonyl groups back to colorless hydroxyl groups. The combination of dissolved soils and cellulosic degradation often turn the wash bath the color of strong tea. The reaction of the sodium borohydride with water is also produces hydrogen gas bubbles, and the bath may give off a smell reminiscent of sulfur or chlorine. It is important to agitate the wash bath regularly to allow all sides of the textile to come in contact with the surface of the water where the chemical reaction is taking place.

If you are a textile conservator with experience in wet cleaning and bleaching historic artifacts, you may be interested in our MTS Handout, Bleaching Textiles with Sodium Borohydride, available on the MTS website.

On Friday, May 27th, 2016, Museum Textile Services will open it's doors for visitors between 4 and 7 PM. Our new studio, which we moved to last October, will be decked out with many of our current projects, as well as our Andover Figures museum manikins. We will have free conservation handouts, and archival boxes for sale. Refreshments will be served.

If you would like to attend the MTS Open house, please RSVP to info@museumtextiles.com. Our address is unpublished, so you must RSVP for the current location in Andover, Massachusetts. Sorry, the studio located on the second floor and is not handicapped accessible.

If you would like to visit for a textile consultation, please email info@museumtextiles.com or call us at 978-474-9200 to schedule an appointment.

​Museum Textile Services has had the honor of conserving four of these historic artifacts, one from a museum and three from private citizens. Two of the flags were made of silk, one of cotton, and one of rayon. These flags represent the men who carried them in the larger historical landscape of World War Two and were conserved to preserve the legacies of the two men fighting from different sides of the world, for their countries. 
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The tails are in fairly good condition, aside from degrading silk in the jacket lining and a large tear in the seat of the pants caused by Matt's son's senior prom antics. MTS will first stabilize the tear and then the suit will be dry cleaned. A new button will be constructed to match a missing silk-covered suit button. The suit will be packed in an archival box and safely stored so that future generations will be able to wear John Brown Lennon's tails.

​Museum Textile Services recently conserved a valance made by author, artist, and lay preacher Sarah Elizabeth (Harper) Monmouth (1829-1887), whose name is synonymous among Canterbury, New Hampshire, historians with the phenomenon of the “Worsted Church.” One of literally dozens of decorative textiles made by Monmouth between 1871 and 1879, this eight-foot-long valence is composed of brushed cotton twill flannel and paper cut outs from printed wallpaper. The effect from just one of these textiles is a bit dizzying and confusing to the eye, so an entire church full of Monmouth's textiles must have been a true Victorian work of art.

After fumigation, the worst areas of lifting paper were readhered back to the canvas using BEVA 371 film. A strip of BEVA was placed behind the area that needed to be readhered, and the shape of the wallpaper cutout was carefully traced onto the paper backing of the adhesive film. The custom-cut adhesive shape was then tacked to the underside of the wallpaper, and finally adhered to the cotton fabric using a tacking iron at low heat. The final treatment was to repair several holes in the white fabric with cotton underlays and nylon net overlays. After conservation, the valance was rolled on an archival storage tube.

We were very excited to have the opportunity to conserve this truly unique object. It was a joy to learn more about Sarah E. Monmouth, who is an inspiration to anyone who has ever found solace and healing in the art of handicrafts.
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