ABSTRACT
Because of the pictorial nature of tapestry there is a long history of washing in order that the image can still be seen clearly. Wet cleaning of textiles is so often treated as a trivial operation because of familiarity with domestic laundry, whereas immersing old fragile textiles in water must constitute one of the major risks in textile conservation. It is difficult to balance the conservator’s obsession with controlling relative humidity in the display environment to an extremely narrow band, with immersion in water and subsequent drying which must result in much higher chemical and physical risk. Many of these issues are discussed in the excellent review article Wet cleaning of historical textiles: surfactants and other wash bath additives by the late Ágnes Tímár-Balázsy (2000). With over 200 references to a diversity of articles on ethics, chemistry and practice, this review is both an excellent introduction and ideal starting point for more in-depth study.
