Conservation of a 19th-Century Pictorial Embroidery

An early 19th-century pictorial embroidery came to Museum Textile Services from the New England Historic Genealogical Society late in 2019. It is a mourning embroidery made by Caroline Jackson when she was nine years old. The pictorial embroidery depicts a young woman wearing a bonnet and period dress standing in a landscape of fields and trees. The trees, grass, woman’s gown, and bonnet are embroidered in satin stitches of polychrome silk. The sky and woman’s face, skin, and hair are painted in watercolor. The silk taffeta ground fabric was sewn to a linen prior to embroidering. The linen is folded around a wooden stretcher and tacked along the sides with metal tacks. It has reverse-painted glass and a gilded frame.

Pictorial embroidery before conservation.

Needlework was a crucial part of female education for centuries. During the early 19th century mourning embroideries became popular; George Washington’s death was the impetus of this shift. Pictorial embroideries could be made as a memorial or as a record of aesthetic of the era. Based on the lack of a deceased’s name, this embroidery may be a reflection of Jackson’s education in fashionable stitching rather than as a memorial to a lost loved one.

​The painted silk areas of the pictorial embroidery had several splits and were lifting away from the linen underneath. This is an inherent vice of the medium and cannot be stabilized by stitching due to the fragility of the silk and presence of the paint. It was decided that an adhesive treatment was the most appropriate method to stabilize the work.

Kayla using the University Products Preservation Pencil during treatment.

Based on a literature review and testing carried out at MTS, Conservator Kayla Silvia selected a treatment using the adhesive Klucel G® (hydroxyproylcellulose,) due to its lack of sheen and ability to be reactivated with solvents. Losses in the painted silk were first infilled with patches of silk haboutai that was painted with gouache and coated with the adhesive solution, 4% Klucel G in deionized water. ​The silk haboutai patches were positioned between the linen and painted silk, and the adhesive reactivated with solvent vapor for several minutes. Reactivation of an adhesive this way minimizes potential damage to the fragile silk that can occur with heat reactivation. ​

Solvent reactivation of the lifted areas of the pictorial embroidery.

Kayla cast out an adhesive overlay using a solution of 4% Klucel G in deionized water onto silk crepeline. To minimize the impact on the aesthetic of the pictorial embroidery the overlay was toned with gouache paints. ​Once the infills were in place, the silk crepeline overlay was applied over the surface of the pictorial embroidery and solvent reactivated. Supplementary stitching in silk thread around the perimeter of the losses and splits reinforced the bond between the different layers. The end result is a stable marriage of fabric layers that are virtually invisible. 

Then the pictorial embroidery was remounted on its wooden stretcher with an archival board acting as a barrier and support to the back of the embroidery. The board and stretcher were encased in fabric and the pictorial embroidery stitched to the mount. Upon return to the New England Historic Genealogical Society, conservator Todd Pattison reframed the embroidery in its original materials. 

The pictorial embroidery after conservation.

The pictorial embroidery framed. Image by Todd Pattison.

This was the first collaboration between the New England Historic Genealogical Society and Museum Textile Services. We look forward to more opportunities in the future.

​

​Kayla Silvia has a BA and BS from (SUNY) at Oneonta, and a MPhil in Textile Conservation at the Centre of Textile Conservation from the University of Glasgow in Scotland.