Burn time: Light related objects

Pamela Crowe explores light conditions and objects linked to lighting in the museum store

In-store arm-waving illustrated by the author

The Discovery Centre is a purpose built museum storage facility with regulated temperature and humidity. It is also windowless so that we can control how much light the museum objects are exposed to. 

Any visit to the store usually involves a fair bit of arm-waving at the motion-triggered light sensors located throughout (see photo). These lights are on timers, eventually returning the store to darkness when the humans have left. 

Here, light is rationed, not just to save energy but because light exposure can significantly damage the objects within. In the Store, we have the luxury of choosing how and when we use light, we understand how to control it and can instantly illuminate or choose darkness. 

Searching the store and researching the collections is about giving as many items as possible a small spotlight – even if only briefly. It’s tricky to merely toe-dip into an object’s story and then quickly retreat. You feel you must stay for the duration, ask questions, look closely, ask more and look again. You have to allow it into the light long enough for it to glow a little.

This was the premise for my search today: I return to a particularly ill-lit passageway between the costume and ceramics cabinets in zone 4, scrutinising shelf after shelf in the semi-gloom. I look not so much for oddities but for the unremarkable. 

Shelf 2, Cabinet 12, Zone 4. Semi-gloom

I’m trying to re-train my eyes to see those artefacts that have no ego, the wallflowers that avert their gaze as mine skims past. I half-pretend my errand has an intrepid purpose, like Dorothy in Disney’s Return to Oz, tasked with three guesses for the true object in the room of antiques.

The 'Fairly' Fairy Lamp

Amongst a shelf of colourful glass I fix focus on a small amber cup with a diamond cut design in the glass. In our museum database it is described as a “Fairly lamp” which throws me initially. What is a “Fairly”? This turns out to be a typo, revealed when I go back to the real object and see the words “Prices Fairy Lamp – Glass Empire made” written on its underside. 

Two minutes of googling later and a whole world of Fairy Lamps has opened up. We would call them night lights or tea light holders now. This one (pictured below) dates from around 1900-1910 and was a very ordinary little object, mass-produced in a variety of shades (blue, green, red, amber) and intended to promote sales of Price’s candles.

Price's Fairy Lamp, night light holder c.1900-1910

Price’s Patent Candles Company began trading in 1830 and helped transform candle production away from a small workshop based enterprise with the wax chandlers and their apprentices overseen by the ancient City Livery Companies into production on an industrial scale. They revolutionised candle production by replacing traditional tallow and beeswax candles with a new Stearine candle made from a composite of refined tallow and coconut oil. Tallow candles, made from animal fat, were low-cost but smoked and smelled.

In contrast, beeswax candles were expensive and could only be afforded by the Church and the wealthy. Candles made from Stearine fat burned cleanly and brightly and were much cheaper to produce making them available to far greater numbers. Domestic light could be marketed to the masses, light became considerably more affordable and the impact on non-daylight hours must have been great.

Within twenty years of start-up, Price’s had become a household name and by 1900 were producing over 130 types of candles: candles for pianos, photographic darkrooms, carriages, dining rooms, ballrooms, nurseries, candles to deter intruders, edible candles for desperate explorers on expeditions and the army, candles for bedrooms, double-wick railway signal candles, miner's candles, beeswax candles for the Catholic and Anglican churches and smokeless candles to sit under shades.

The 'Servant's' Candle

Of all these I am most struck by the servant's bedroom candle. Distinct from the standard bedroom candle, it burned for only 30 minutes. It starkly illustrates the place of light as a commodity, the ownership and manipulation of which exposed and reinforced social hierarchies. If light gave liberty then that liberty could be rationed and controlled. Access to brighter light, longer light, cleaner light reflected social status and the opportunity to move more freely and productively, more socially through the darker hours. 

Servants typically received coals, bed and candles as part of their terms of employment but were instructed not to use their 30 minutes of light for reading. Later, when gas and electric lighting began to replace candles, employers could choose to install wiring so that servants' lights could be switched off remotely at their own, not the servants' convenience.

In our huge Store, I contemplate the small candle holder, sat light-less in the Glassware cabinet. Across the floor, high up in cardboard boxes in Zone 3 lie its counterparts, the candles. Most, unburned but held in appreciation, like so much here, of what they once represented. 

By Pamela Crowe, Volunteer Tour Guide and Blogger at Leeds Discovery Centre 

Store Tours
Come and explore our collections at the Leeds Discovery Centre every Thursday at 11am and 2pm in our Store Tours. For more information about visiting our store, please contact us on 0113 378 2100, email discovery.centre@leeds.gov.uk or visit our website. 

Sources/More info:

• Prices Candles - Company History
• Lucy Worsley - Brief History of domestic lighting
• The Museum Association - Shine On event

My Quest for Chinese Tigers at Leeds Museums

Objects do not easily give up their secrets, but for every secret they divulge many more are yet to be discovered. 

When I was asked to research an object in the Voices of Asia exhibition at Leeds City Museum, I was keen to find a small and little-known item, something that might have been previously overshadowed. I saw the small Chinese jade bowl and I was intrigued by it from the start.

I started reading up on Chinese jades, both online and in the reference library at Leeds Discovery Centre. I gained interesting insights in to the history of Jade carving in China, which dates back 6000 years, as well as a rough idea of when this particular bowl may have been made (Qing dynasty, somewhere between 1800-1880).

Researching jade carved characters

However, I soon noticed that insights were not answers. Nowhere was this more obvious than in the meaning of the bowl’s band of elusive carved characters. The more I researched the carvings the more ambiguous they seemed. I spent a long time examining the object in its case, and then looking around at other items in our collections or in the various books and online references on Chinese symbolism. This was all informative, but I was still no closer to finding out what those characters actually were.

In the end, I needed a closer look. The curator kindly let me take the bowl from its case. Carefully tilting the bowl this way and that, I saw that the figures seemed more muscular than the sinewy lizard-like forms I had imagined, with strong defined spines and large feet. 

Small carved lines on the base of the limbs and on the back of the head suggested fur, and not scales. There was something distinctly feline about the characters.

I took several pictures for our records, and prepared some hand-drawn sketches of the characters. What surprised me was that this act of sketching, which involved focussing in on certain seemingly insignificant incisions, revealed features that I had previously taken for granted. Two highly defined incisions on the top of each of the heads, and several incisions on the limbs, started to look too deliberate to just be a suggestion of fur. They seemed to be tiger stripes.

After some time, a cup of tea, and a bit more online research, I was finally brave enough to write the words ‘carved tigers’ in the object description. This discovery illuminated the meaning of the carving. 

In China, the tiger is appreciated for its beauty and savage power, and is an appropriate symbol for a military person of high rank. The tiger is king of all the animals and can drive away evil demons.

Despite this small victory, I can’t help but feel that there is more that those characters can tell us. If anyone knows more please do tell!

By Sarah, World Cultures intern

Un-locking a Korean Chest at Lotherton Hall

Last week we investigated the interior of the largest and most beautiful Korean chest or cabinet at Lotherton Hall. The Gascoigne family collected four of these, and we know from the furniture catalogue by Christopher Gilbert, published in 1978, that the insides have been viewed before.

We located some keys, and one let us unlock the outer doors, to see the 10 drawers inside.

 All four cabinets are from the late Joseon dynasty (1392-1897), and date from around 1800-1830. Their fairly simple decoration indicates that they are men’s chests rather than women’s chests (see the elaborate decoration on the women’s chest in the Philadelphia Museum for comparison).

The cabinet, of upright rectangular design, is attached to a low stand with shaped rails and bracket feet; and has flush-panel double doors. The door junction is masked by strip of bass finely engraved with pots of flowers while the circular elaborately lobed escutcheon, decorated with flowering trees and birds, bears six medallions featuring the six syllabled Sanskrit mantra ‘Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ’, well known from Buddhist scriptures. 

Because Confucianism was dominant in the Joseon Dynasty and it provided a unifying perspective for artistic styles, this Buddhist inscription is unusual. It may well mean that this particular cabinet was used by monks in one of the Buddhist temples. The outer door handles are backed by profiles of flying bats, symbols of good fortune, and the design detail also includes fishes (a symbol of wealth).

Normally these chests were made for the men’s study room (Sarangbang). In Korea the use of these treasure or seal chests was adopted from Japan, from where the name was also taken, Japanese Kap-kae-susuri became Korean Kap-kae-suri. In Korea the woods most commonly used are pine or paulownia. 

Korean traditional furniture was designed to be suitable for the lifestyle of sitting on the floor. This floor was warmed by under-floor heating, taking the heat from the slightly lower kitchen area and dispersing it around the house. Korean traditional houses, han-ok, had relatively low ceilings and small living spaces. Low furniture helped to give the interior more of a feeling of space, and also fitted with fashionable aspirations for a minimalist well-ordered look.

Find out more about Korean furniture:

• Traditional Korean Furniture by Man Sill Pai and Edward Reynolds Wright, published in 1984. Wright’s collection is now in the Wiseman Art Museum in Minneapolis. 
• Korean Antique Furniture & Accessories by Mathieu Deprez ,  published 2014.
• Kofum.com gives a good overall impression of traditional Korean architecture and interiors.

By Myunghae Seo, Voices of Asia Intern

#EdibleMasterpieces - Rockingham Poodle

In another Collections through Cake installment, this time we are joing up with The Art Fund's national fund-raising endeavour #EdibleMasterpieces.

One of the amazing roles that the Art Fund has is to help museums and galleries buy art. Recent Leeds Museums & Galleries aquisitions that have been supported by the Art Fund can be found here. They include the West Yorkshire Hoard, 'A Dead Linnet' by John Atkinson Grimshaw and many other wonderful artworks.

Here in Leeds, we have a collection of Decorative Art that has been designated as a collection of national importance. To highlight it and the collections that are held at Temple Newsam and Lotherton Hall, we put together a Facebook album from which people could vote for an Art Fund donated Masterpiece to become Edible from! Choices included the Queen Anne State Bed, a Chippendale desk, but the winner was a Rockingham Pottery Poodle.

The Rockingham Pottery produced this ceramic in about 1830 - this was close to the end of what was called the 'red-mark' period of Rockingham ceramic production. (The other is the 'puce-mark period' from 1831-42.) These names reflect the colour of the stamp on the piece.  

Projects Curator Lucy got to make the bake!

Our lovely poodle (and puppies) is made out of raspberry buttermilk sponge, with coconut buttercream sandwiching the layers. The shaggy coat is made from marshmallow, with glittery sprinkles and a bit more coconut. A hand-sculpted face completes the masterpiece. Expressions are all the poodle’s own.

Interestingly, Rockingham got the effect for the poodle's coat by attaching very small pieces of ceramic one at a time to create a ruffled effect. Lucy used marshmallow and dessicated coconut to achieve the same ends.

Lucy says: I made the bake the evening before, then this morning sandwiched the layers and ‘iced’ the cake. I had a surprise as marshmallow is not perhaps the best medium to create a poodle’s ceramic coat from - it's sticky – there were a few moments where I thought “this isn’t working”!

Pyke pedestal organ clock project

In the collections at Temple Newsam House there is a splendid pedestal organ clock from 1765 made by George Pyke. When it functions it can play eight different tunes via its weight driven organ. It is part of a larger group of similar objects by English makers, which are represented in collections in museums in Beijing, Naples, Utrecht, London and Birmingham. George Friedrich Handel wrote music for the pedestal organ clocks made by Charle Clay. Pyke was apprenticed to Clay and continued working in Clay's tradition. This object, acquired in 1954, possibly had Handel music originally but it is known with certainty that the organ's barrel was re-pinned in 1817.

This pedestal organ clock has not functioned properly for some time, and the decision was made to stop its function until such time as sufficient funds became available for a programme of conservation and restoration works to its organ, automata, clock movement, metalwork and case. Comprehensive reports on its condition, with treatment proposals were done by a West Dean College student, Brittany Cox, and these formed the basis of finding the funding for the project. 95% of the funds have been secured from donors: from the family of Raymond Burton, in his memory, of Burton's Menswear fame, and who during his life was incredibly supportive of Temple Newsam; from the Pilgrim Trust; and from The Friends of Leeds Museum. The remaining balance will be funded by Leeds Museums and Galleries. The project is live, and the Pyke pedestal organ clock has been dismantled, packed up and shipped to West Dean College for a "full monty" programme of conservation and restoration works. The Pyke pedestal organ clock is due back at Temple Newsam House in mid-July, all singing and all dancing for the benefit and enjoyment of our visitors! Watch this space for updates as the project progresses.

Twitter updates on works to the Pyke pedestal organ clock available by following:
https://twitter.com/pykewestdean

By Ian Fraser

A Day in the Life (I fixed a door today, oh boy)

My work can be highly varied, something for which I am always grateful and one evening last week, reflecting on the day's work and the number of diverse tasks I had undertaken that day, I thought "Do a blog, a snapshot of the day!"

Repair of damaged and broken Georgian door furniture, and installation, to the door between the Gothick Room and its dressing room, at Temple Newsam House.

 
Working with Temple Newsam site staff to determine water ingress problems over the South Wing and the Darnley Room, for reporting back to property management for attention. I lecture on the subject of conservation of historic houses, interiors and collections to students from the universities of Leeds, York and Hull, so I also updated the lecture with some more examples of what can go wrong and why. Additionally, conservation of historic buildings falls within conservation policy, an official policy document written by Head of Collections, Registrar and LMG conservators. Friday, last week, it was chucking it down, so that is the best time to look for leaks, and also spotted an overflowing downspout, indicating a blockage. The day before had been lovely, however, and I had the company of a heck of a lot of swallows on the roof of Temple Newsam House.

Picture by Jeff Darken

Ensuring that all the facets of the display development at Leeds City Museum, centred on the John "Longitude" Harrison precision pendulum clock, keep going forward, audio visuals, graphic treatment, showcase, other display accessories, and the objects themselves. Applying the size coat in preparation for gilding these finials for the hood of the John "Longitude" Harrison precision pendulum clock. The making of the finials was donated by craftsman Barry Horton, link to his website at the bottom of this blog.








Continuing with structural repairs to some fine chairs by Thomas Chippendale the Younger prior to their being reupholstered.

Some minor repairs to objects coming back to Temple Newsam from a loan to Sewerby Hall, East Yorkshire.

Posted by Ian Fraser (with gratitude to John Lennon for blog title inspiration, and for all the music)
http://www.barry-horton.com

You've been framed!



Madonna and Child tablet conserved
but needing a frame for display.

Detail of moulding being carved

Making things that are curved can be interesting technical challenges. The Madonna and Child tablet that has undergone conservation works is for display at Temple Newsam House. Missing its frame, a new one, of an appropriate design for the 17th century, is being made in Temple Newsam's conservation department. Starting from the tablet a template was made, and then divided into four pieces. Oak was chosen for its strength and density; softwood would be easier to carve, but because the tablet is heavy, and softwood is also prone to some movement and splitting, this makes it less than ideal for framing the sort of object we are talking about here. It is also historically accurate, oak would likely have been used in this instance, and certainly all good church and cathedral joinery is done in oak. Four pieces of quarter sawn oak were rough shaped, and their ends precisely surfaced so that the ends met cleanly. Quarter sawn oak is very straight grained, and stable. The four pieces were glued together under the pressure of a web cramp. After the glue had set a floating tenon was let in across each of the four joints. Precisely shaping the inside and outside curves was the next step. This was followed by laying out with a sharp pencil the lines of the mouldings to be carved, the carving. This was done entirely with an old hacksaw blade that I ground to make a kind of planing knife. It worked surprisingly well, and the carving was quicker than I thought it would be. Keeping the edge sharp is essential, of course. So, regularly, it is over to the diamond grit lapping stone to get an edge back, and then giving the new edge a tickle on the polishing wheel. Wicked edge achieved! Over the coming days I will update with all the procedures, because eventually this frame will be watergilded, and then toned down to give the sort of appearance of an old gilded surface.

Frame in oak being fabricated and shaped.

With the moulding carved and smoothed the frame is ready
for the next stages.

Onto the bare oak a coat of rabbit skin glue size is brushed on. Mixed 1 part rabbit skin glue granules to 10 parts water, and then gently heated into solution. The subsequent layers of gesso is the size in the same dilution with chalk (calcium carbonate) mixed in. More about gesso and its purpose when we get to that stage. The hot size when applied to the oak will be absorbed a long way into the timber. This will prevent excess rabbit skin glue in the gesso being absorbed into the oak. This would weaken the gesso and make it crumbly. The size also helps with bonding the gesso to the wood, forming a chemical bridge between the two. Powerful hydrogen bonding takes place between the size and the wood, and the size and the gesso, an interface between the wood and the gesso, and absorbed into both.

Rabbit skin glue size being brushed and worked
into the surface of the wood that will be gilded.

Gesso is a mixture of the rabbit skin glue size and powdered chalk. Its purpose is to enable an extremely smooth surface, on the item being gilded, to be created. The binding medium, rabbit skin glue is also used in the subsequent layers, the bole, and the size water applied at the gilding stage. The size water activates the dry glue in the gesso and bole, and bonds the gold leaf down to the surface.


Powdered chalk is mixed into the
size to make gesso. Enough chalk is mixed in
until the gesso has the appearance and
consistency of single cream.





Several coats, at least 12, of gesso are applied to the substrate.
The coats should all be applied the same day to ensure the
layers bond properly.

After enough gesso has been built up it needs smoothing,

and re-capturing of the detail that has gotten a little clogged up

with gesso. This is done with abrasive papers. Also with "water-

polishing". Fine cotton cloth slightly dampened slightly

dissolves the surface and allows a little re-distribution and smoothing.

Application of bole is the next stage. Bole is made of rabbit
skin glue size, and very fine grain coloured clays. Here
the clay is being crushed and mixed with water before being
added to the size.

Here the clay and size have been mixed, filtered for smoothness
and is ready to apply, fairly hot.

 Several coats of bole are applied. Yellow colour bole, and red bole

on areas that will be burnished (more about that at the

application of gold leaf stage!).

The coats of bole are made extremely smooth with
a succession of abrasive papers, finishing with
an abrasive of at least 6000 grit. Effectively this
action is polishing the bole. The surfaces are now
ready to receive the gold leaf.

Gold leaf is extremely thin. In water gilding it is bonded to the substrate by the glue in the bole and the gesso. This is re-activated with water. To help bonding further a little rabbit skin glue size is added to the water. A little ethanol (a kind of alcohol) is added too. This helps to break the surface tension of the water and helps it to wet the surface instead of beading. Gilders call this solution "size water". The gold leaf is cut to manageable, suitable, sizes and shapes with a gilder's knife. The gold is supported on a gilder's cushion at this stage, having been drawn out of the book of gold leaf it was stored in. A gilder's tip is a kind of wide, fine brush. It is used to pick the gold up. It has to be slightly sticky so that the gold transfers to the tip. I put a little Vaseline on the back of my left hand, and periodically, when the gold no longer stays on the tip, brush the tip over the Vaseline.

Laying the gold leaf

Picking up gold leaf with a kind of brush called a gilder's tip

Size water is applied to the bole. This activates the glue
in the bole, and gesso. As the water is drawn into
the porous surface the gold leaf is sucked down onto
the surface, and is bonded by the glue.

All the gold leaf down. Next step, after the gilding has
dried, is to dust off the excess, and then burnish the
two round mouldings.

Some hours after applying the gold leaf the gesso reaches the right
moisture content for burnishing. The tool for this is a polished agate stone.
Gentle pressure compresses the gesso and gold, and brings about
a deep and lustrous shine.

The tablet has been offered into the frame's rebate. Two battens
are carefully shaped to the contours of the back of the tablet.
When fixed into place the battens apply no tension to the
tablet. Plaster behaves well under compression. The same cannot
be said for its being under tension!

The frame has been toned down with some coats of weak size
with black and brown watercolour mixed in. This is very effective
in giving an aged appearance, taking down the very bright, new gold
without detracting from its lustre. Ready for installation by
Temple Newsam's technicians. Fait accompli!

Posted by Ian Fraser

Outreach

Knole Park, Sevenoaks, Kent, a National Trust property

The collections and historic buildings at Leeds Museums and Galleries have a very high cultural value, so much so that many of the collections are Designated as being of national significance. Moreover, Temple Newsam House is the greatest historic house under local authority management in the United Kingdom. This value, or intellectual capital, has been created by curatorial expertise, often with conservation support. Curatorial expertise, and leadership, and what is generated from these for visitors, are core functions and strengths of service delivery. All other museum functions, including conservation, are, in effect, parasitical to those core strengths, i.e. they draw their reason for existence, and the "raw materials" of service delivery from the core strengths. The expertise, experience and judgment built up by working with these great collections and buildings has value to other organisations in advisory capacities. Two examples of outreach to other heritage organisations, to which I have contributed, are set out here.
The team at Knole Park, Sevenoaks, Kent, will be, all being well, embarking on a multi-million pound project to conserve the building fabric, interiors, and collections of the National Trust's (NT) largest, most important and most problematic historic house. The project also has a major audience development element, in keeping with the NT's policy of "Bringing places to life". Very excitingly the NT plans are to include the creation of conservation studios in the medieval barn adjacent to Knole. The NT are preparing a Stage 2 bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund for project funding, and as part of developing the bid held a specialists' consultation day on 06/02/2013. Specialists in conservation, archaeology and historic house interpretation and audience development were invited by the National Trust to review their plans and comment. The exercise will help the National Trust to develop its Stage 2 bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The medieval barn at Knole. It was badly damaged in a fire in the 1980s, and the
roof is modern. As part of the buidling's conversion to conservation studios the original
steep roofline will be restored.

Maquette of the Carved Room at Burton Constable Hall

Burton Constable Hall, near Hull, with whom LMG has worked in partnership since 1992, has a hugely interesting Baroque interior, from about 1680, the Carved Room. Unfortunately this room was heavily interfered with, and damaged, when it was converted into a catering kitchen, when Burton Constable Hall was still a private house. The room is entirely wooden panelling, and replete with fine carved mouldings. Most of the panelling survives ex situ. Paint analysis shows that it had a very light green, terre verte decorative scheme, with elements of the carving picked out in gold. There is also a fine double-vaulted ceiling that will need re-consruction, along with the extensive woodwork repairs, installation and decorating of the panelling. The sash window is one of the earliest in existence, contemporary with sash windows at Hampton Court. Elevations of the walls have been drawn, as well as ceiling plans. The distribution of green and gold has been mapped. Wooden components have been linked to their places on the elevations. The maquette in the picture has been prepared both for visitors and for Burton Constable Trustees. With plans and costs now all determined the next step is applications for funding to funders like the Pilgrim Trust, the Monument Trust and the Heritage Lottery Fund. It is going to be a thrilling project, and a rare opportunity to research and re-construct a Baroque interior, and an opportunity to refresh the joiner and carver skills.

Design for the vaulted ceiling

Posted by Ian Fraser