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

Stichting Ebenist conference, "Reproduction and Reconstruction in Furniture Conservation

The conferences organised by Stichting Ebenist in the Netherlands, in the field of furniture and wooden object conservation, attract an international audience, and the latest conference, 8-9 November 2012, has been the most successful to date, with something like 250 delegates from over 35 countries. In the picture above all the speakers have been gathered at the end of the conference to receive the thanks of the Stichting Ebenist committee, and a small gift, this time a kit with which one can build, in miniature, a famous chair designed by Gerrit Rietveld. Temple Newsam House was well represented with the first two papers of the conference. Retired senior curator Anthony Wells-Cole talked about the research he and I have been doing in respect of the original appearance of the Japanese lacquer columns and mouldings made in the 17th century for a bed chamber in Huis ten Bosch in the Hague. After being broken up and sold in the Napoleonic Wars the columns etc. turn up in the furniture trades in Paris and London and get built into and added to pieces of furniture, including items supplied to Temple Newsam House. I gave the second paper, on the re-construction of the Queen Anne state bed at Temple Newsam. There are previous blogs about this project. It was a great privilege to be invited to stand before my peers, but an even greater privilege to tell everybody what a great museum Temple Newsam is, and support my colleagues, present, retired, moved on, and no more, in particular the late Christopher Gilbert, to whom, along with Anthony Wells-Cole, I owe my career. Christopher was one of the UK's most eminent furniture historians, and also the Director of Leeds City Art Galleries, based at Temple Newsam. There has been a long history of excellence in research, acquisitions, exhibitions and conservation at Temple Newsam, led by knowledgable and dynamic curators. There has been something of an inter-regnum as all the curator posts at Temple Newsam are vacant, but hopefully soon there will be some appointments.

Stichting Ebenist

Posted by Ian Fraser

Re-upholstery of a Regency day-bed

A very fine early 19th century daybed, supplied to Newby Hall, North Yorkshire, probably by Thomas Chippendale the Younger, was acquired by my retired colleague James Lomax, in the early 1980s, when he was working for Manchester Art Galleries, at Heaton Hall. The upholstery was mostly missing, and no work had been done on the daybed since its acquisition for Heaton Hall. Recently Manchester City Council took the decision to close Heaton Hall and dispose of its furniture collection and the daybed was offered for display at Temple Newsam House. Its reupholstery is underway, duplicating the techniques and materials of early 19th century upholstery. Further updates in due course.

Finished! And on display in the Terrace Room.

Posted by Ian Fraser

Temple Newsam House, Old Testament Prophets from the Jacobean Chapel

Display development in the Red Corridor at Temple Newsam House is about displaying artefacts and features of the very old house, Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. In the 17th century there was a chapel in the basement featuring a pulpit made by Thomas Ventris of York, and several larger-than-life depictions of Old Testament prophets, painted on wood, by John Carleton, in 1636. Incredibly much of this material survived despite the room's being turned into kitchens in the late 18th century. Six of these Old Testament prophets will be going on display soon in the Red Corridor. Remedial works to the wood and painted surfaces have been underway. A framing and mounting system is being devised in the woodwork studio, something that will give a sense of how they were displayed in the first place. Further update after final installations! A little more history about the chapel and Carleton panels via the link below:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=b-obLPGz46wC&pg=PA107&lpg=PA107&dq=Carleton+panels+Temple+Newsam&source=bl&ots=CwDLs9HqfB&sig=hMn4j_JcJ_2qIXi_CeuEX08i9Wg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=tf_IUKGwIOak0QWmuoEg&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Carleton%20panels%20Temple%20Newsam&f=false

Posted by Ian Fraser

The Temple Newsam Christmas Tree Star

Temple Newsam House is a bit special, so accordingly it has a special star for its Christmas Tree. The link with collections objects, is that the same decorative technique seen on many kinds of object around the house, picture frames, furniture etc. was used to gild this star. The technique is called water gilding, and the link takes you to a video about water gilding, on the website of the Victoria and Albert Museum. This star is a recent creation provided by Temple Newsam's conservation staff, not an historic object, though I guess in time it will be.

Technique of water gilding video

Posted by Ian Fraser

Why we serve

Cultural identity, the collective memory, is something that helps bind societies together. Professional staff within museums provide their service delivery to visitors out of commitment to public service, education, and because of their belief that they can make a difference to people's lives. Children, quite rightly, get a lot of attention from the education and curatorial teams of museums, whether the subject is art, history, science, natural history, etc. I feel very privileged to support my curatorial and education colleagues in teaching roles.

Today two groups of school children, from Temple Newsam Halton Primary School, visited Temple Newsam House for a workshop about chair design and construction, part of their Design Technology studies. Back at school they will be designing chairs having been inspired (hopefully!) by what they have seen and learned. Here I am comparing and contrasting the construction of Windsor type chairs, with frame construction using both examples from the collections at Temple Newsam House, and items I have made. The materials and tools used were included too. Afterwards the children went around the house looking at chairs, drawing and thinking about chair design. I am looking forward to seeing their ideas and designs!

Ian Fraser
Conservator, Furniture and Woodwork, Temple Newsam House

Stichting Ebenist, 11th International Symposium for Wood and Furniture Conservation, Amsterdam, November 2012

Stichting Ebenist is an organisation of conservation professionals in the Netherlands and their conferences in relation to wood and furniture conservation are established now as the premier such event globally, attracting an international audience, similarly speakers. The theme for the 2012 conference is Reproduction and Reconstruction in Furniture Conservation. Delegates for the upcoming conference will be getting a Temple Newsam double whammy: a paper on the re-construction of the Queen Anne State Bed, from Ian Fraser, Temple Newsam's furniture conservator:

And a paper from Temple Newsam's retired senior curator Anthony Wells-Cole into the research and virtual re-construction that he has been working on in relation to the 17th century Japanese lacquer columns and mouldings of the Temple Newsam lacquer secretaire, and upright piano, both supplied in the 19th century, and kept in the Chinese Room. The Japanese lacquer columns and mouldings once formed part of a highly elaborate balustrade in the bedchamber of Amalia van Solms, wife of the Stadholder of The Hague. They lived in Huis ten Bosch, a palace in The Hague, The Netherlands. Commissioned by the occupants, and probably the first European commission of Japanese lacquer work, the components arrived in the 1630s, were installed and stayed there until the Napoleonic Wars. French troops overran the Low Countries, and Huis ten Bosch was ransacked. The Japanese lacquer components, war booty, start turning up in the furniture trades in London and Paris in the 19th century, and being added to pieces of furniture. A fascinating backstory, and one of the aims of Mr Wells-Coles's research has been trying to visualise what the bed balustrade looked like in Huis ten Bosch. Of outstanding quality, the scenes depicted on the columns tell the ancient story "The Tales of Ise".

The Tales of Ise

Stichting Ebenist 11th International Symposium