Embroidered Wall Hanging

This was a joint project with an artifacts student who graduated the MAC program in 2017. She and I worked on the photo-documentation and treatment proposal. As she was close to graduating and finishing up her research project I carried out the analysis of the fibers, approved treatment on the object, and returned the object to the client. The main concern for this object was the use of pressure-sensitive adhesive tape used to adhere the cloth to a masonite backing board. The adhesive had cross-linked and become embrittled endangering the object. The masonite had also been off gassing and may have caused yellowing of the textile. It was imperative to remove the backing and replace with an appropriate backing support. Once removed through mechanical means, fibers samples were taken from the verso in order to analysed through optical microscopy.

The majority of the fibers were wool with the exception of two samples as see on the right which had been cotton (pale yellow thread on the textile), the ultramarine blue and indigo fibers were synthetic as seen on the right above. A small portion of the base wool had been exposed and samples were taken to compare damage done on the pile of the woolen shroud. These results can be seen on the bottom of this text, showing the pile fiber being more frayed and broken where as the base weave had been stable and showed no areas of degradation of the fibers.

The treatment for this object is as follows:

• Mechanical cleaning of the recto of the textile with HEPA filtered vacuum, soft bristle brushes, make up sponges, netted nylon, and tweezers
• Mechanical removal of the yellowed tape into contact with the Masonite (?) board using scissors and scalpels.
• Removal of the Masonite backing board.
• Mechanical surface cleaning of the verso of the textile removing bits of board using HEPA filtered vacuum, nylon net, tweezers, make up sponges, and soft bristled brushes.
• Solvent cleaning to remove adhesive tape and to reduce adhesive tape residue on the textile done with a mixture of ethanol and acetone
• Local humidification of creases and corners with ethanol, cotton, hollytex, plastic wrap, and weights.
• Stain reduction of adhesive residue with blotting paper, cotton swabs, and ethanol
• Couching stitches with skala used to attach silk crepeline patches to corners
• Spot humidification to reduce puckering in the center of the textile
• Stain reduction of the engrained spots using 3% orvus in distilled water and cotton swabs with successive rinsing of the area.
• Humidification of the folded edges using gore tex, blotting papers, and weights.
• Mechanical cleaning of the recto using HEPA filtered vacuum, nylon net, and make up sponges.

The after treatment image of this object can be seen to the immediate right. The total treatment hours for this object was 60 hours including sampling, analysis, removing around 40 pieces of tape, and constructing the new backing board.