I. Introduction
Disney movies have always had an impact and resonated with their viewers. The first time I saw Brave, I became enamored with the way the heroine, Merida, had to repair a piece of her family history, a tapestry, to be able to save the day. In a way, that is what conservators do. They take care of the items placed in their care and try to repair and mend each individual piece or artwork. In the movie, Merida is able to simply sew the tapestry back together, which in essence makes her a conservator of sorts. Tapestry conservation, however, is not as simple as Merida makes it seem. It is a complex process that takes vast knowledge and skilled workers.
Tapestry conservation is a form of conservation that showcases and highlights all the ways that conservation works to extend the lifetime of the pieces who need it. Because of the nature of fabrics, tapestries break down and degrade over time. As a result of varying degradation rates of different elements of tapestries (such as colors fading or threads and the weft becoming weaker and beginning to unravel), conserving a tapestry as an entire entity becomes more complex than simply looking at it as a piece of fabric. This means that sections of a tapestry have to be looked at separately and may require different conservation techniques in some areas. The aim of this paper is to look at the process that might occur while preserving a tapestry and highlight recommended steps and practices by looking at the conservation of a collection of tapestries entitled The History of Alexander the Great that is on display at Hampton Court Palace.
It can be difficult to look at tapestries and the various forms of degradation they experience, such as light damage, breakdown of treads and the weft, or accumulation of dirt on the surface. In an effort to make this information more digestible, this paper will look at a collection of seven tapestries that have been on “continuous display in the Queen’s Gallery at Hampton Court Palace since their acquisition” (Shepard, 2006). The collection has experienced changes in the technology available to conserve the tapestries individually and as a set. Being on continuous display introduces an intriguing set of conditions under which to look at this collection.
II. What is a tapestry?
Warp and Weft. Before there can be a plan to restore and work to lengthen the lifespan of a tapestry, there first has to be the distinction that it is a tapestry. So, what is a tapestry? “Tapestries are woven textiles; the term ‘tapestry weave’ generally describes a weft-plain faced plain weave, where the warp threads are completely covered by the weft threads” (Lennard, 2006). When creating any type of loomed or woven textile, the warp threads are held stationary and the weft threads are woven through to create the details or image that will appear on the surface of the textile when it is finished. The weft threads are tasked with the job of creating the image that will be present on the completed tapestry, because its threads move throughout the warp threads, seen in Figure 1. The weft threads are made of thicker materials and can sometimes have metal filaments wrapped around them to make various pieces of the image glitter and be more vibrant (Rogerson and Garside, 2006).
The warp and the weft are crucial to the structural integrity of a tapestry for different reasons. The warp supports the entire tapestry. If the warp is affected by agents of deterioration, such as pests, and begins to break down and become weaker in areas, then the tapestry as a whole becomes more susceptible to damage. The weft on the other hand is the source of the image, so it can experience light deterioration or incorrect relative humidity or temperature differently than the warp. The weft is sometimes dyed with different dyes than the warp because it is expected to me more vibrant and eye-catching. Because of this, fading of the colors can drastically change the original design and can also cause an increased breakdown of the threads surrounding different colors because of the chemicals off-gassing.
The main thing that separates a tapestry from a piece of textile artwork, such as artists who embroider unconventional items or fashion designers who create stunning wearable textiles, is that a tapestry is generally woven with a combination of wool or silk threads and the textile will normally depict a historical event. Understanding the way tapestries are woven is crucial to the conservation of tapestries. Conservators need to understand the way the weave in a tapestry is constructed to be able to make long-lasting repairs to help extend the lifetime of a tapestry. Different kinds of repair and preservation techniques can be more effective depending on the exact weave of the tapestry. There are many different repair techniques that each function differently to reinforce the tapestry.
III. Meet the Collection
The History of Alexander the Great collection at Hampton Court Palace consists of Alexander’s Visit to Diogenes in his Tub (Figure 4), Alexander and Hephaestion Visiting the Tent of the Wife of Darius (Figure 2), Alexander’s Triumphal Entry to Babylon (Figure 5), Alexander Meeting the Chaldean Prophets (Figure 6), The Battle with the King Porus of India (Figure 8), The Battle of Granicus (Figure 7), and Alexander with his Horse Bucephalus (Figure 3). These tapestries were woven in a workshop in Brussels and are “copies of the Gobelins series designed by Charles Le Brun in 1662” (“The History of Alexander”). They were placed in the Queen’s Gallery. The tapestries are all comprised of woven silk and wool.
IV. Documenting Condition
When the tapestry is originally examined, it is important to document the condition the tapestry is in. Some repairs included weavers’ marks and can be an indicator as to the provenance of the tapestry. These weaver’s marks give information into both the conservation techniques used during different time period while also informing curators as to the history of the piece. The inclusion of these marks is also important because it can information as to when and where the tapestry was commissioned. Many pieces, both tapestry and other artworks, lose some of their importance when they are separated from their history. This is a form of deterioration called dissociation. Looking at the borders of the tapestry “can provide useful evidence of historic methods of hanging, such as the use of nails, hooks, studs or metal rods inserted in casings” (Hayward and Marko, 2006). The marks made in the tapestry to hang it can indicate where it hung or when it hung based on historical evidence of the other hangings. Noting the dimensions of a tapestry are crucial to the overall documentation process. Dimensions are crucial because tapestries are meant to hang, and the size needed to display them can change where or when they are displayed. Recording the size of the tapestry “can also highlight how fibres seek to revert to their original dimensions and that tapestries can undergo dimensional change as a consequence of cleaning” (Hayward and Marko, 2006). Cleaning tapestries will be addressed later in this paper.
Tapestry Reverse. When an institution or a conservator is first tasked with evaluating the condition of a tapestry or a collection of tapestries, they have to decide where to start. Hayward and Marko suggest that “looking at the reverse provides the viewer with a sense of the original, often very vibrant, colours of the threads used to weave the tapestry” (Hayward and Marko, 2006). They believe that looking to the reverse of the tapestry is one of the most crucial steps in the reviewing process of a tapestry. The reverse of most tapestry will often give inside on the amount of degradation the front has experienced from light, as the back will not have near the level of degradation. “The reverse also reveals a lot about the skill of the weavers who produced the tapestries” (Hayward and Marko, 2006). The same amount of care was taken in producing the back as in producing the front. Because of this, the backs of tapestries often give a view of what the original view of the tapestry would look like, just in reverse. There are many elements that go into the general analysis of a tapestry to form ow?a conservation plan. One thing that really seems to be the cornerstone, at least according to Hayward and Marko, is to do a thorough examination of the reverse of the tapestry. The back of the tapestry can give hints into the provenance of the tapestry, as well as show what the original colors in the threads may have looked like, and evidence of when and where the tapestry may have been on display.
“Recording of all previous repairs and patches present on the reverse of the tapestry has formed key part of the treatment” (Hayward and Marko, 2006). Examining the repairs and patches on the reverse gives a good idea of the more extensive repairs that have been made to an individual tapestry during its lifetime. Most tapestries don’t have any written or documented repairs or conservation efforts other than the repairs that can be seen when the tapestry is examined.
V. Agents of Deterioration
Like any kind of artwork, tapestries are susceptible to the standard agents of deterioration. The following sections will explore the effects of light damage and water damage. Tapestries are also very susceptible to pests.
Effects of Light Exposure. A major cause of degradation with tapestries is their consistent exposure to light over hundreds of years. This kind of damage is irreversible and puts conservators in a unique position of working to limit the exposure and to try and halt the effects. “Exposure to light also causes colour changes; the green of foliage tends to become more blue as it ages and the more fugitive yellow components is lost” (Lennard, 2006). Light exposure is somewhat measurable when it comes to looking at the amount of damage that is done. With light exposure, the original colors can be approximated so that the conservator has an idea of what damage has been caused due to light exposure. Whereas, it is more difficult to pinpoint exactly what causes frays and holes in the weft of the tapestry. For this reason, looking at the effects of light degradation can be helpful if it is done properly.
Odlyha, Theodorakopoulos, and Campana conducted a study to observe advanced aging tapestry samples as a way to look at color deterioration (2007). In this study, samples were created and dyed with authentic recipes so that the samples could be advanced age with light to hopefully mimic the chemical changes the dyes would experience in a 400-year-old tapestries. These samples were then compared against extractions from 400-600-year-old Flemish tapestries. The aged samples compared to the real samples showed significant differences in the chemical absorption of Cys-A (cysteine acid) (Odlyha, Theodorakopoulos, and Campana, 2007). The aged samples tended to not accommodate the fluctuations that were present in the authentic samples. The authentic samples tended to show results that would be consistent with having a larger variety of pigments in the dyes than the reproduced samples did (Odlyha, Theodorakopoulos, and Campana, 2007).
This method of looking at the effects of light is not accurate and may not fully reflect the aging tapestries actually experience for several reasons. The first reason is that the aged samples were only aged with light. It was noted in the experiment in several places that the tapestries that the aged samples were being tested against would have experienced other forms of aging. The experiment noted that the tapestry samples were taken from the back of the tapestries where fraying was already occurring. The back of these tapestries has been exposed to deterioration agents such as excessive moisture, pests, and incorrect relative humidity and temperature. The back of the tapestries would also not have received the same amount of light deterioration that the front should have (like the aged samples would have experienced). The aged samples were kept in a controlled environment and were not exposed to naturally occurring deterioration agents. The tapestry samples would also have been washed and left outside to dry over the course of their lifetimes based on the popular practices for cleaning tapestries (Odlyha, Theodorakopoulos, and Campana, 2007). Because of this, the tapestries could have potentially been exposed to more UV rays than what the aged samples indicated as well as pollutants from the bodies of water where they were washed. Because the samples were only light aged it really isn’t appropriate to compare them to the tapestry samples that would have experienced a higher degree of deterioration.
What Light Damage Looks Like. Even though the study discussed above does not showcase what light aging in a tapestry would look like, one of the tapestries in the Alexander the Great series provides an example of what a tapestry may look like if it wasn’t exposed to light versus a piece that was. When examining a tapestry in the series, Alexander’s Visit to Diogenes in his Tub, conservators found that the tapestry had been pleated and folded down to fit its position above the fireplace in the Queen’s Gallery. When conservators, unpleated the tapestry, they were able to see the original colors that had been protected from over 250 years of continuous display and light degradation (Shepard, 2006). Even though the parts of the tapestry that had faded can’t easily be restored to look match the original colors, it is interesting to see how light has affected the dyes used to create the colors in this particular tapestry. In the two images below (Figure 9), a viewer can see that the full unpleated tapestry of Alexander’s Visit to Diogenes in his Tub, has much more vibrant and richer colors at the top of the image where it has been folded and kept safe from light damage since it has been hanging in the Hampton Court Palace. Alexander’s Visit was originally pleated so that it could fit above the fireplace in the Queen’s Gallery (Figure 10).
Water Damage. In 1882, the tapestries experienced water damage from a fire that occurred in the gallery above the Queen’s Gallery. Because of this damage, a team of needlewomen repaired the tapestries in 1885-1886. There is no documentation of the repairs that were made then. However, when the conservation of the collection occurred in the late twentieth century, some repairs that were found can be dated back to around that approximate time period (Shepard, 2006). Just like with other forms of artwork, water damage can affect the dyes and colorants present in the artwork. Even though some tapestries may be affected by water negatively, using water to clean tapestries is a popular method of cleaning.
VI. Cleaning
Cleaning tapestries is an important element to their general conservation just as it is with any type of artwork. As a result of being made of fabric, dirt can collect in the weave of the tapestry. This creates a problem because tapestries are normally very large, and it isn’t as simple as just washing the material like someone would do with their clothes. There are many ways that a tapestry can be cleaned. It can be washed, cleaned with an aerosol suction (De Wit, 2006), spot cleaned, or cleaned with non-aqueous solutions (Lennard, 2006). Techniques to clean tapestries have developed over time, just as the techniques to restore tapestries have. Many conservation studios, like the Textile Conservation Studio or Chevalier Conservation, have developed their own methods of cleaning tapestries. Because of its connection with the Alexander the Great series, this paper will look at washing and wash tanks.
Wash tanks. One of the major problems with washing tapestries, is that moving a large tapestry from a washing tank to a drying rack causes elevated levels of stress on already weakened fibers. While the Textile Conservation Studio (TCS) at Hampton Court Palace was in the midst of the restoration process of the Alexander the Great series, they decided to build a wash tank that would allow the tapestry to be lower in to the water to be washed and once the washing was complete, the tray that the tapestry was already laying in, would be raised and the tapestry could dry out of the water without being physically moved (Shepard, 2006).
Another studio who has worked to develop their cleaning methods is the Chevalier Conservation studio. Chevalier Conservation first opened its wet cleaning studio and had four objectives when creating their own cleaning apparatus (Cussell, 2006):
“limit the handling of a tapestry before, during and after wet cleaning to a minimum; to develop a cleaning treatment where the quality of the solvent and surfactants used were adapted to the cleaning of aged and fragile fibres; to analyse the water and the behaviour of the textile fibres during the wet cleaning process; and to improve and accelerate the drying of tapestries in comparison with previous methods” (Masschelein-Kleiner, 1972).
In doing this, they ensure that they are caring for tapestries in every step of the cleaning process and gathering information (i.e. the behavior of the wet textile fibers) to further improve their machines and anticipate how tapestry fibers will react to future cleaning techniques. Cleaning tapestries is an important step in the conservation of tapestries and can greatly improve the appearance of a tapestry. An example of this is seen in Figure 11. The image on the left is the tapestry before it was cleaned, and the right is the tapestry after being cleaned. The colors appear more vibrant and aren’t as muddled. It is also easier to observe the highlights and intricacies of the figure in the image.
VII. Potential Techniques Used
There are many different methods of repairing and preserving tapestries. As explored in earlier sections, it is important to note the various forms of degradation a tapestry could be experiencing because they could mean that different techniques are needed. This section will look at some different types of repairs.
Reweaving. A popular method of tapestry repair, that is often used, is reweaving. “Reweaving was the dominant repair technique before the 1960s; since that period the trend has been towards the conservation techniques, primarily the support of weak areas by stitching them onto a support fabric” (Lennard, 2006). Because reweaving was once the dominant repair technique at one time, conservators today need to know and understand how those repairs would have been executed and how they have aged separately from the original fabrics used in the tapestry. Reweaving consists of recreating sections of the tapestry that have frayed threads or have been damaged to a point where they are starting to create larger structural issues. Reweaving is used to provide more structural support to areas of a tapestry that are weak, and threads may even be hanging loose from the tapestry. Even though reweaving can be used to strength a tapestry, conservators have to be careful and mindful that the threads they use will not fade at the same rate as those originally used. Finch points to the tapestry Anthony and Cleopatra as an instance of this. They note during the nineteenth century Cleopatra’s bare leg was rewoven to be covered by the cape Anthony is wearing in the image. However, the red used in the reweaving faded at a different rate and her leg became visible again (Finch, 1989).
Reweaving of King Porus of India and Battle of Granicus. Beginning in the 1970s, the tapestry collection began a restoration and conservation process. This restoration process proceeded over the course of 10 years in differing levels of intensity. The restoration process came to a sudden halt in 1980 when the last restorer retired from the Textile Conservation Studios (TCS). There were two tapestries, King Porus of India and The Battle of Granicus, that were in the midst of being rewoven. The restoration efforts of these tapestries were put on hold until 1993 when they were re-evaluated. The conservation plan then shifted so that the repairs would provide “overall structural support and that none of the original weave should be removed” (Shepard, 2006). This conservation plan ensures that the tapestries are both supported while also retaining as much of their original weave work as possible. To achieve this conservation mission, “a linen support material was attached to the entire back of the tapestry and all support stitching worked through both the tapestry and the support” (Shepard, 2006). This method of supporting the tapestry while maintaining as much of the original weaving as possible proved to be effective and the two tapestries were rehung in 1995 (Shepard, 2006). By attaching support to the tapestry, the conservators were able to both extend the life of the tapestry and cut down the restoration time frame significantly. Each of these tapestries were also further reinforced with support lines. The support and reinforcement of King Porus of India can be seen in before and after images in Figure 13 and Figure 14.
Support Lines. Earlier, this paper discussed the warp of a tapestry and the support system it creates for the weft and the tapestry itself. When an area of the warp begins to fray and weaken, one method that conservators can employ to strengthen the warp is to create a warp grid (or support line) on either around the damaged area or across the entire reverse of a tapestry. A warp grid is a grid of intersecting horizontal and vertical lines of thread. This is what a warp would look like if it were to also have horizontal lines. Once the warp grid is assembled, it can be attached to the back of the tapestry in several different ways. It can be woven into the tapestry around a damaged area, attached on the edges, or attached on the edges with supporting threads weaving throughout the tapestry to bind the tapestry to the grid. A warp grid is a repair technique to use because it gives more stability to the tapestry and reduces some of the tension that builds up on threads surrounding damaged areas. A warp grid can also be referred to as support lines.
One potential problem that conservators have when deciding to attach any kind of support fabric to the back of a tapestry is that whatever material is attached will react to environmental factors. According to Frances Lennard, “linen is the most commonly used support fabric” because it responds to environmental changes like most tapestries would (Lennard, 2006). However, when linen is used it also needs to be replaced over time as it ages and becomes stiff and inflexible.
Sewing Slits. A slit in a tapestry is “where blocks of colour meet and the weft threads turn back around adjacent warps, resulting in a slit” (Lennard and Hayward, 2006). Figure 6 shows a depiction of what slits in tapestries look like. When the fabric in a tapestry loosens over time, the slits can weaken and in turn weaken the whole tapestry. One method of correcting this is to resew the slits together to strengthen them. The De Wit Royal Manufacturers’ conservation states “it is our opinion that the sewing work of the slits is a fundamental part of the original structure of the old tapestry, and consequently that it is preferable to restore those slits before applying new consolidation supports” (De Wit, 2006). De Wit notes that some conservators choose to sew the slits later in the restoration process, but at De Wit Royal Manufacturers, they do it at the beginning to give the tapestry some kind of extra support throughout the process. Sewing slits is a practice that is done in almost every tapestry conservation, so it makes sense to sew the slits at the beginning of the conservation process because it will need to be done at some point.
After sewing the slits, a consolidation fabric or fabrics are added to the back of the tapestry to increase the support of the tapestry. The consolidation fabric is added in a manner that creates a grid of consolidation lines. The consolidation lines “secures the transition between weak and strong areas and consequently resists vertical stresses” (De Wit, 2006). This is an important step in strengthening the tapestry because it is mean to hang and if it is not supported correctly, vertical stressors will increase the degradation of the tapestry. By adding the network of stitches to support the tapestry, the De Wit Royal Manufacturers are ensuring that the tapestry has much support as possible before more intensive and extensive repair is approached.
VIII. Conclusion
This paper has explored what tapestry conservation can entail through the lens of a series of tapestries called The History of Alexander the Great. The seven tapestries in this collection have each experienced different problems and issues due to their age. As a result of unforeseen circumstances, the original restoration of the collection (started in the mid-twentieth century) lasted longer than anticipated, and changes in tapestry conservation technology can be seen in the way the individual tapestries were restored and cared for. As more technologies become available, I am hopeful that more tapestries will be able to be better conserved and restored so that they may once again be as vibrant and admired as they once were. As seen in the discussions of this paper, tapestry conservation is not as simple as a Disney heroine sewing a tapestry up to save the day and has far too much depth to explore everything through the lens of seven tapestries. Tapestry conservation is a more complex profession in which the individual conservators are making decisions that will impact the way a piece is cared for 50 years down the road.