ABSTRACT

Until relatively recently, it was customary to use only surface cleaning techniques to remove surface dust and dirt from tapestries. Hefford (1979) describes how, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, crumbled bread was brushed across the surface of a tapestry to pick up dirt particles. Surface cleaning may still be the only form of cleaning carried out as part of a conservation treatment. It is not always possible to carry out a wet or solvent cleaning treatment if, for example, the dyes are fugitive or if components are particularly weak.