Meissen Pierced Dish: Challenge Solved
Here are some pictures of the two pierced dishes I worked on. Since the last time I wrote about them here I have been doing colour filling on losses to the pierced decoration and some retouching to the last one. This means the dishes recovered their appearance and are now stable. The fills were made … Read more
Recent Press
When this article in The Independent came out, featuring Brittany Cox (MA Conservation ’12) and Metals Programme Tutor Jon Privet talking about conservation courses at West Dean, we thought it would be nice to a press round-up (well, we thought it would be nice to show off). Here is a smattering of things published by or … Read more
Yesterday in Furniture
Postgraduate furniture student and contributor to the blog Tomoyuki Uemori let me follow him around the furniture department yesterday: One of the projects he has at the bench right now Mixing Paraloid-B72 on a lathe! Making a frame from scratch And testing out a new espresso machine at afternoon tea
Finishing with the Duke
Maureen Duke, a much-loved local bookbinder, came to West Dean a few weeks ago to teach finishing to some of the graduate and postgraduate Books students. They learned to tool in blind and gilt on leather panels and didn’t break focus when I stuck my camera in their faces! Don’t laugh at Sibel’s footstool—proper height is … Read more
A Family Bible
Note from the Editor: The Graduate students in Books have paired up to work on two Bibles, each with their own set of problems. In a series of posts they’ll explain what they’re doing, as well as giving some tips for preventing this type of damage in your own books! __________________________________ The mid-19th century family Bible … Read more
Recently in Books
Alex Brooks consolidating the disbound leaves of a 16th century printed book using Klucel-G in isopropanol Alex Brooks and Brittany Cox figuring out a papier-mâché fill for a papier-mâché head on her automaton Leather dyeing samples in a lecture from David Dorning Abigail Uhteg analyzing the pigments on a 17th c. Italian … Read more
The Scarlet Tanager – The Second Installation in a Series on Automata
Meet Radcliffe: he has real feet, wings, beak, body – the makings of a living bird, but without the squishy inner bits. They were traded over a hundred years ago for clockwork. The Scarlet Tanager is an American songbird, which belongs to the cardinal family and is largely known for its vermilion red plumage and … Read more
Terracotta figurine – when archaeological becomes decorative
Terracotta is a type of soft red clay commonly used for its plasticity and ability to take detailed decoration motifs. Examples of its use throughout history are abundant and a lot have survived until the present day. However small and incredibly well preserved (considering its possible old age), an object like this can tell us … Read more
Boulle Box: Notes on the Object (and a similar Piece)
This object is something that I was given to assess for treatment towards the end of the spring term. I will be restoring it over the summer. I have put a little bit about the history and design of the object below: This Boulle object is almost identical to another object seen in Antique Boxes … Read more
Shagreen Covering for a Silver Case
An interesting project came to the Books department last week: Brittany made this beautiful silver case for a tiny automaton, and the client asked for it to be covered in shagreen. We use a lot of different skins on a regular basis, but this one is unusual: Shagreen is a bit of a loose term … Read more
