ABSTRACT

This well referenced book provides an amply illustrated publication on upholstery conservation which discusses and reviews the issues related to the care, interpretation and treatment of upholstered furniture.

Through many well illustrated case studies the inter-disciplinary collaboration fundamental to upholstery conservation, and the complex decision-making process involved in the treatment of upholstered furniture, are made evident. The case histories are contributed by leading international practitioners in the field and concern objects and collections in the care of English Heritage, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and other internationally renowned institutions.

Likewise, the contributors, from both sides of the Atlantic, are world-renowned specialists and leaders in this area of conservation working for the public and private sectors. The case histories, illustrated in colour, black and white and specially prepared line drawings, concern object treatment and documentation, the conservation of information, the function and the artefact. They range from the documentation of eighteenth century removable chair covers and the treatment of a nineteenth century carriage to a twentieth century foam-filled chair belonging to a museum.

chapter |9 pages

Introduction

Upholstery conservation as a practice of preservation, investigation and interpretation

part |101 pages

Object Treatment

chapter |20 pages

The Ernest Race ‘Heron' chair and footstool, designed c.1955

An example of conserving foam-filled upholstery

chapter |11 pages

The Lawrence Alma-Tadema settee, designed c.1884–85

The challenges of interpretation and replication

chapter |7 pages

William Burges' Mermaid chair, c.1870

Conserving both original materials and later adaptations

chapter |13 pages

Reconciling conservation and interpretation

Strategies for long-term display of a late seventeenth-century bed

chapter |16 pages

Documentation and conservation of carriage trimming

The treatment of a nineteenth-century carriage interior

chapter |12 pages

Preserving a inid-nineteenth-century decorative scheme

Conserving the Morant suite in the Octagon Room, Raby Castle

part |61 pages

Documentation

chapter |18 pages

Seat furniture at the court of Henry VIII

A study of the evidence

chapter |30 pages

Evidence from artefacts and archives

Researching the textile furnishings of a Victorian bedroom at Brodsworth