Waterford Museums Relaunched

I was privileged this year to be part of the team that helped to relaunch Waterford's Museum of Treasures and Reginald's Tower. I remounted the decorative art and archaeological collections and dressed the exhibitions. Waterford has firmly planted itself on the tourist map as a result.

Tread Softly.....

I have only one anecdote to offer regarding carpets and it is a tenuous connection but stands the telling of it I hope. I remember as a very young child in the early 1970s doing floor exercises with my mother in her bedroom on her new fitted carpet. As we lay there a mouse decided to make a dash across the bedroom floor. We both lept up and my mother grabbed me at the back of my outfit, pulling me behind her so she could escape all the quicker.  I don't know what shocked me more, the mouse or discovering the limit of my mother's love. One blood-curdling scream later and the mouse died of shock mid-stride.  


And now to carpets. American visitors to the United Kingdom bemoan the lack of mixing taps and the presence of carpeting in the smallest room in the house. Thankfully they weren’t visiting in the middle ages, when according to Erasmus, "The floors are, in general, laid with white clay, and are covered with rushes, occasionally renewed, but so imperfectly that the bottom layer is left undisturbed, sometimes for twenty years, harbouring expectoration, vomiting, the leakage of dogs and men, ale droppings, scraps of fish, and other abominations not fit to be mentioned.”

Rushes, in the form of matting, continued in use until the early 17^th century. Carpets were known in England and Ireland at this period but were largely used as table coverings, as depicted in Holbein’s “The Ambassadors” painted in 1533 (shown above), with its strange anamorphic skull in the foreground. It was not until the eighteenth century that carpets began to be used on floors. They’ve received much punishment since and are a challenge to maintain. Most of us are familiar with the various forms of deterioration found in carpets: threadbare patches, flattened and loose pile, uneven fading, worn ridges, broken side-cords, fraying fringes and holes left by insect attack. From the largest, most flamboyant Aubusson, to the smallest, most sedate tribal prayer-mat, fine antique carpets and rugs present their owners with a  perennial dilemma; to continue to use and enjoy them while accepting their slow deterioration, or to store and replace with a modern, sacrificial piece.  One must be well informed as to the relative importance of an individual carpet, to decide that it is no longer primarily a functional object to be walked on without too much concern. The question is, has it attained the  status of an ‘artefact’, no longer fit for feet? By properly displaying and maintaining an antique carpet, it should be  possible to avoid the unsatisfactory solution of removing it to permanent storage or the more likely scenario of it’s decline into threadbare tattiness.

Firstly, look at where you have placed your rugs.  If they are in doorways, halls, on staircases and landings or beneath the dining-room table in particular, they will receive heavy wear. Silk and flatweave carpets (e.g. kilims) will rapidly deteriorate in these positions. Try to move such pieces into areas that  receive less foot traffic such as bedrooms. Turn carpets so that wear is distributed evenly and furniture does not mark it. If you have a large collection of rugs, then move them to different positions in the house so that they are afforded some relief from the gruelling duty of being the hall carpet. It  is through the front door that most grit, gravel and dust is introduced.  This settles in the fibres of the carpet and acts as an abrasive slowly weakening the structure of the carpet.  Install a wide metal grid at your front steps that will remove grit from visitors’ shoes.  For owners of historic houses that have large visitor numbers, it is advisable to have at least two metres of natural fibre matting to trap  dirt at the main entrance.  This should be vacuumed on a daily basis when the house is open to the public.

Of primary importance in maintaining any carpet is the use of an appropriate underlay as it cushions the carpet against wear.  This should be made of a natural hair felt.  Pester your local carpet shop into finding a source of this for you.  They will offer the alternative rubber-based underlay.  However, avoid this as it eventually deteriorates and may stick to both the carpet and the floor over which it is placed.  The dimpled surface of rubber underlay has been known to permanently mark wooden floors.  The underlay should be cut so that it is slightly larger than the carpet in order to protect the side-cords and fringe. 

If the carpet sits on a stone floor, then place a layer of carpet paper under the underlay to protect from rising damp.  To prevent a rug creeping over an underlying fitted carpet, either stitch a piece of canvas onto the carpet or use polyester wadding under the rug. Don’t use nails or staples to secure carpets. For very important carpets in rooms open to the public, use a 1.5m strip of good quality neutrally-coloured wool carpet underlaid with polyester wadding as a drugget along visitor routes.  The drugget can be fixed with slim wooden batons to a wooden floor.  One can also roll the side of a carpet along which people would normally walk onto a length of plastic piping of at least 10cm diameter, pile side out.  Make sure the pipe is long enough to support the full length of the rolled carpet and cover it with a barrier layer of acid-free tissue paper. Use roped stanchions to keep the public at least two feet away from the rolled edge of the carpet. Also, ban the stiletto heel from your antique carpets.  They can exert incredible pressure on all surfaces, pock-marking wooden floors and  easily ripping a fragile carpet.  Owners of historic houses open to the public should request visitors not to wear shoes with high narrow heels.  Such a request printed on advertising literature will help reduce the problem.

Light will fade the dyes in a carpet. If you value them, it is worth installing sun-curtains or blinds to reduce direct sunlight.  If you have shutters use them.  In rooms that are rarely entered they can be kept closed most of the time.  The ultra-violet (UV) element of sunshine is the most damaging.  Just as it will age your skin, it will also age your works of art.  It is possible to almost entirely eliminate UV by applying an invisible UV-absorbing polyester film to the inside of window glass.  Contractors who specialize in the application of various types of window film should be able to advise on its installation.  This is a measure that I would strongly recommend for historic houses with important collections.  Local authority grants may be available to fund such work.

Carpets should be vacuumed only when necessary and not as a matter of habit.  Use a cylinder vacuum cleaner with a smooth nozzle (i.e. without brushes attached) on its lowest power setting. Vacuum only in the direction of the pile.  You can tell the pile direction by running your hand up and down the carpet.  The direction which feels smoother is the pile direction. Kilims and other flatweave textiles should be vacuumed horizontally. Never vacuum the fringe or side-cords. These can be brushed clean with a soft banister brush. For more efficient cleaning, turn the carpet upside down and lightly pat the back.  You’ll be surprised how much dirt this releases.  Be careful not to tear fragile carpets when turning them over.  It is best to roll  them onto a tube and then unfurl them  in the opposite direction to turn them upside down.  For very fragile carpets and tapestries, construct a metre square wooden frame and attach fine polyester or nylon netting to it.  This can be placed over the carpet when vacuuming to prevent the loss of any loose or fragile fibres.

Do not be tempted to use off-the-shelf carpet cleaners.  These are acceptable for use on  the average fitted carpet but cannot be recommended for antique carpets.  If you wish to have your carpet cleaned then it is advisable to seek the services of a qualified textile conservator.  A good textile conservator should have the facilities to wet-clean a carpet.  If you have spilled something liquid on your carpet place a clean white cotton tea towel on the stain and press down on it to soak up as much of the spill as possible.  Do not dry with a hair-dryer or any source of warm air as this can cause the fibres to shrink and distort.  Instead, open the windows or put a fan in the room until the carpet has dried out.  For tea, coffee or wine stains, dry as above with a tea  towel and then dampen with a little soda water and continue to mop up.  Avoid salt as this can fix a stain into the carpet.

If the ends and edges of a carpet are fraying, it is possible to carry out simple remedial repairs.  Never remove damaged side-cords or trim fraying ends as these elements hold the carpet together and prevent the pile from falling out.  For the repair of holes, splits and threadbare patches consult a textile conservator. Don’t put tape or glue onto splits. Cutting a damaged carpet up into smaller pieces is both unnecessary and  unethical. It is worth remembering that a poorly executed  repair can damage a carpet and significantly reduce its resale value.

Use wooden caster cups under furniture legs.  These can be painted to match the colour of the carpet to reduce visual disturbance.  In late spring and early summer moths and beetles will try to gain entry through open windows.  Either keep them shut or install fine netting on the  inside to keep these pests out.  If you do find an infestation, isolate the carpet by rolling it on a tube and sealing it in clear polythene.  A textile conservator will be able to freeze it for you to  kill the infestation at minimal cost.

The oldest existing carpet in the world, the Pazyryk rug now housed in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, dates to the fifth century BC. It was discovered in the frozen tomb of a Scythian prince in Siberia in the 1940s.  While following the above advice in caring for your antique carpets cannot promise such exceptional longevity, you should certainly be able to enjoy them on  a daily basis and pass them on to future generations.

Accreditation Achieved

Great news - the G.A.A. Croke Park Museum has received full museum accrediation from the Heritage Council.  I assisted the G.A.A. in the conservation aspect of their application.  Congratulations to them for their hard work.

Argently Yours

           

My most treasured possession is a three inch high silver statuette of a boxer, given to me by my much-loved grandfather. It sits on my otherwise Spartan bedside table, ready to be grabbed in the event of a fire.  My Grandfather pressed it into my hand the last time I visited him in the nursing home where he passed away.  We don’t know how he had it; perhaps a former sparring partner paid a visit and returned an old gift. Grandfather was always giving things away. He boxed in the Olympics in Los Angeles in 1932 and at the infamous 1936 Olympics in Berlin. I suspect that his daughter-in-law viewed inheriting the slew of silverware that adorned my grandparents’ mantelpiece as a double-edged sword.  After witnessing my grandmother’s own hundred years’ war against the ever-advancing tarnish, my aunts knew that maintaining it was a labour of love. And that of course is the downside of silver: it tarnishes or to put it more precisely it reacts with sulphur or hydrogen sulphide to produce silver sulphide tarnish. Rubber, wool, horn, eggs and various biological processes emit sulphur. If you wish to tarnish a silver spoon very quickly, use it to eat a boiled egg while wearing rubber gloves and a woolly jumper and standing beside a fumarole or in a tannery. Beware of re-enacting Pliny the Elder’s last earthly moments during this experiment. The very cleverest amongst you will realize that wool felt in trophy cabinets and cutlery drawers will keep you busy polishing the silver and the rubber bands around the cutlery will cause severe local tarnishing. A sealed display cabinet with a sachet of activated charcoal will reduce the rate of re-tarnishing. You might also consider having your silver lacquered though this will not work for very intricate pieces and should be done by a professional conservator.  Silver on open display i.e. not in a cabinet, will become dusty quite quickly, especially if it is under lights. As dust is both acidic and damp it will cause your silver to tarnish faster.  Remove it with a rolled up lint-free cloth or very soft brush whose metal ferrule has been covered with tape.

How to clean your silver then? Jonathan Swift’s advised the following in his Directions To Servants; “When you clean your plate, leave the whiting plainly seen in all the chinks for fear your lady should believe you had not cleaned it.” Mrs. Delaney claimed this work was beneath him. First things first, remove any rings that might scratch the relatively soft silver and don a pair of rubber-free nitrile gloves. Fingerprints can permanently etch into the silver surface. Avoid pastes and wadding as these usually contain an abrasive that removes the top layer of silver along with the tarnish. So much surface decoration like monograms and gilding has been lost in this way. Simple silver dips are to be preferred, followed by an all-over wipe with a silver cloth impregnated with tarnish inhibitors. This cleaning process will release the sulphur contained in the tarnish along with its distinctive rotten-egg smell. I would advise consulting the conservation section of the V&A website for more detailed instructions.

Silver has it all, both beauty and brains, unlike lead which I’ve always considered a rather negative metal as it is dull and heavy, not to mention toxic.  Silver has anti-microbial properties and so was commonly used in toilet sets. It was applied to soldiers wounds as silver leaf in WWI. As silver halide it captures images in photography. It is a very efficient electrical conductor and makes the most sonorous musical instruments.  Howard Carter wrote of his discovery of  a silver trumpet in Tutankhamen’s 3000 year old tomb in the Valley of the Kings in 1922, ‘Beneath this unique lamp, wrapped in reeds, was a silver trumpet, which, though tarnished with age, were it blown would still fill the Valley with a resounding blast’.  It was duly blown at the rehearsals for a live radio broadcast in front of an estimated 150 million listeners worldwide and shattered to pieces around the feet of the British Hussar bandsman who had been charged with playing it. With age the silver trumpet had become as brittle as glass. The situation was not improved by the fact that King Farouk of Egypt had just come into the rehearsal room on an unexpected visit. Not a good day at the office. The moral of the story? Very old silver can be quite brittle and should be handled carefully. Always pick up a silver object by the main body and not by the handles as these may have become weakened through long years of use. Most importantly, if you’re going to blow a trumpet do try to make sure it’s your own.

© Erica Devine 2011

  Mirror, Mirror On The Wall

           

Am I like other women? I maintain a mental map of where all the best mirrors are in my local town and studiously seek out the best ones to patronize when on my various shopping trips. You might think the best one is in the local upmarket hotel, but it is not.  It’s in the rather dated restroom of a 1960s public house with loud orange tiles. But boy does it have a good mirror. Properly positioned between two windows with frosted glass it casts a beautifully forgiving light. There’s a good landlady in charge, you can tell by the bars of fragrant rose soap. When I am there, I feel like a little girl who has been let sit at that site of thrilling alchemy, her mother’s dressing table, hoping that no-one will come in and break the spell. However, I always seem to have it to myself. That may of course have something to do with my sex, the time of day and the type of establishment I’ve guiltily sneaked into just to stand in front of that mirror!

Alas, just like the subjects they reflect, mirrors also age. Star-like constellations and concentric rings of grey, white and brown that resemble the wavy outlines of bracket fungus; while quite beautiful phenomena, their appearance on your antique mirror should come as a warning that all is not as it should be.  These are the visible manifestations of a long and inevitable process of deterioration that results from the inherently unstable nature of the majority of antique mirrors.  From the late Middle Ages until the mid-nineteenth century when silver came into use, the reflective backing applied to most mirror glass consisted of an amalgam of tin and mercury. Amalgam mirrors have a grey-blue tint, while silver mirrors have a yellow tint and will usually be painted on the back.

The amalgam layer consists of crystals of a tin-mercury compound suspended in a mercury-rich liquid.  The mercury is volatile and slowly evaporates into the surrounding air and mercury is of course poisonous. The mercury content of some mirrored boiserie (panelled rooms) left unopened for many years can reach dangerous levels.  As mercury evaporates, the tin-mercury  crystals become fewer and larger.  Eventually, small holes appear between the glass and the amalgam that glitter like stars. Liquid mercury has also moved by gravity to the bottom of the mirror so that it is very soft and vulnerable to damage from handling.  It is not uncommon to find drops of mercury that have accumulated on the mirror frame.  The fungus-like concentric rings appear in the advanced stages of deterioration where tin has reacted with oxygen in the atmosphere to form the rather charmingly named minerals cassiterite and romarchite.  The unfortunate news is that this is an irreversible process. There has been a practice in the past of turning such mirrors on their side so that the mercury might flow back over the rest of the mirror.  However, this is ill advised as it can flood the relatively stable ‘dry’ areas of the mirror. 

As a protective measure, it is best to keep the mirror in a dust-free environment.  Dust attracts moisture and is often acidic in nature.  Moisture and acidity accelerate the chemical processes of deterioration.  Fingers and spiders can also cause damage.  On some mirrors, it is possible to see the fine tracery of fingerprints and sticky spiders webs etched into the amalgam layer.  One method of protecting the amalgam layer from dust and spiders is to adhere a piece of paper or closely-woven textile over the entire back of the mirror, between the back-plate and the frame in such a way that it does not touch the actual mirror.  Silvered mirrors, if painted, may be cleaned with a soft pony hair brush and the dust vacuumed away. 

Please don’t be tempted to vacuum the amalgam layer on a tin-mercury mirror as mercury will be vaporized into the room.  If you wish to have the back of a tin-mercury mirror cleaned, it is advisable to seek the services of a professional conservator who will be able to deal with any hazardous substances.  They may also be able to ‘patch’ missing areas of amalgam to improve the mirror aesthetically should you desire.  Another option is to have the mirror ‘re-silvered’.  However, should you choose this option it must be remembered that this involves the loss of material original to the mirror.  Replacing the mirror entirely will also result in the loss of the idiosyncrasies of imperfectly formed antique glass.

Avoid commercial glass-cleaning products when cleaning the surface of a mirror as they contain substances which may accelerate deterioration.  It is best to brush the surface dust into a vacuum cleaner using a soft pony hair brush that is kept exclusively for cleaning mirrors in the house.  The glass surface may then be cleaned with 100% cotton balls dampened with lukewarm water to which only a couple of  drops of fragrance-free sensitive washing-up liquid has been added per litre.  Dry with a lint-free cotton cloth rolled into a loose ball so that the edges do not catch on the frame. If the mirror is in a gilt frame it is essential that no water is allowed to touch the gilding as it is very easily damaged.  Finally, mirrors of all types do not like extremes of heat or high humidity.  Avoid hanging them over fireplaces that are in use, against damp outside walls or on walls that receive long hours of direct sunlight.  Follow these few guidelines and you may enjoy your reflection for many years to come.

© Erica Devine     2011