A United States Color Troop's Flag Marker Found in a Small Local LIbrary!

Remarkable historical artifacts can be found in so many places, not always in museums or historical societies. Here is a story of a remarkable flag marker found at a small library in Western New York State. Spicer Art Conservation, LLC has previously treated another USCT flag (read about it here).

The library's director with the framed flag before treatment.   

The flag marker is a silk 35-Star National flag with a 6/6/6/5/6/6 star pattern located in the canton. Embroidered in yellow and light blue silk threads on the strips with "26 / U.S.C.T." The small flag measures 17 7/8" H x 24 1/2" W. All of the seams are flat-feld. The blue silk hoist is a folded over to create a sleeve with four holes that were used to attach the flag to its staff. A small fragment of the fly edge survived. 

Drawing of the flag's construction. In the drawing a small vertical section
of the stitched fly edge can be seen.

The 26th USCT is one of three troops from New York State. It turns out that it is also called 26th Regiment New York Infantry (Colored). The 26th Regiment was organized at Riker's Island, New York harbor, in February 27, 1864. The unit was commanded under Col. William Silliman. 

Below, is the surviving regimental flag for the unit, beautifully embroidered with silk bullion fringe. 

A beautifully embroidered regimental flag for this unit still exists and
is held in the collections of the Division of Military Naval Affairs.
Embroidered at the lower section is "GOD AND LIBERTY".

At one point in the flag's history, it had been glue to a laminated board. Excessive glue was used.

The flag glued to the board once removed from the frame.

 

The slow process of removing the laminated back board that the flag was glued.

The vast majority of the paper board layers were able to be removed. But still not all could be removed safely with out damaging the silk. The small areas were determined to stay.

Encapsulated flag, showing the reverse side.

 

Once the flag was encapsulated, it was then positioned onto a prepared aluminum honeycomb panel. Layers of needle-punch batting are incorporated to create the best pressure with the covering UV-filtered Plexiglas.

Attaching the show covered fabric to the mount.

The flag was positioned onto the prepared mount, covered with UV-filtered Plexiglas and secured with a powder-coated aluminum frame.  

 

Completed and mounted flag.

 

Remembering a Giant of Diplomacy

William Henry Seward (1801-1872), Governor of New York State, Senator and Secretary of State under Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, was a giant of a man in every sense. Although today he is best known for the purchase of Alaska (Seward’s Folly or Seward’s Icebox), in his time he was respected for his intellect, his moral courage and tenacity and his widespread and effective diplomatic prowess.

The large embroidered hanging.

 

That prowess was recognized in his own time far beyond the borders of the United States. The Qing Dynasty of China held Seward in great regard and gifted him with a fine silk embroidery during his visit there in 1870. Spicer Art Conservation, LLC has recently had the opportunity to repair this large (6 foot by 10 ½ foot) work, renewing its handsome surface, repairing its support and preparing it for display.

 

William Seward's portrait created with silk satin stitches
and a coat of couched metallic threads.

The rose red cloth is closely embroidered with symbols of regard, respect and good wishes. The large portrait of Seward dominates the center while eight Taoist immortals stand on clouds in witness on both sides. A dragon and phoenixes, representing the emperor and empress, glare with authority from the top. 

The upper two rows with the large four-toed coiled dragon (mang) amongst clouds. In one claw is a 'pear' or sometimes called a 'ball.' Below are a pair of long-tailed phoenixes on either side of a sun disc. This sun represents intellectual enlightenment, while the phoenix signifies goodness and benevolence.

 

The eight embroidered Taoist immortals with their symbols.

Three gods called the Fu-Lu-Shou, representing happiness, longevity, and prosperity gaze benevolently down on Seward from the upper border. Scattered throughout the piece are peonies representing Spring, bats for happiness, and cranes for long life.

The Three Stars Gods are together in a row above Seward's portrait: Fuxing (Fu), God of happiness and good fortune holds a scroll; Shouxing (Shou), God of Longevity holding a peach that symbols long life; Luxing (Lu), God of Prosperity, holding a child.

Tigers, the king of animals, fiercely patrol the bottom of the work, protecting the Chinese citizens arrayed immediately below Seward’s portrait; they relax, playing qin and enjoying tea and entertainments.

Several other symbols are present amongst the above mentioned elements. They all add to the meaning of the large embordery. They include: Peonies representing wealth; White cranes for longevity; Mythical beast symbolize courage; bats symbolize 'good luck.' Interestingly based on the Chinese character for happiness (fu) and the final character for bat (pine-fu) that both have the same sound.

Lincoln Presidency and Assassination bring a world of memorabilia to be conserved

April 14th marks the 150 anniversary of the fateful day when President Abraham Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theater, dying of his wounds early the next morning.

The memorabilia items that we see linked to this great president are in no short supply. Items that are either directly related to him, or related to some event that included him, are prized. In 20 years of private practice at SAC, clients have brought a multitude of Lincoln iconography to be conserved. And that doesn't even include the items linked to him from the Civil War or the Abolition of Slavery. Lincoln truly was prolific and his image on an item often meant it was kept.

Textile banners like these commonly appeared
with bunting and were hung on a building.
Private Collection.

The artifacts we have treated have been in textile form, like the banner (above), transparency sign (further below), or silk ribbon (furthest below). Objects, like the gloves worn to Lincoln's funeral (immediately below). Paper, like letters believed to be from Lincoln, or letters and newspaper clippings that spoke about him, his presidency, or his untimely death.

These leather gloves were worn to Lincoln's funeral. Surprisingly, we
consulted with another collector on a very similar pair, also worn to
Lincoln's funeral, but by a completely different person.
Owned by the NYS Millitary Museum.

Objects from Lincoln's presidential campaign are also highly prized, like the campaign banner below.

This transparency sign, made of cotton and mounted on a wooden
frame box to be illuminated by candle, is owned by the
Columbia County Historical Society in New York. 

This silk ribbon, from the 1860 Presidential election
suggesting "A. Lincoln for  president" and "H. Hamlin
for Vice-President".  Private Collection.

Often when a client brings an item relating to Lincoln or any other historic figure, they want the item to be substantiated. Is it real, is it from the actual event, or was it from an anniversary to commemorate the event? This is usually unknown, yet they want to conserve the item because of the image of Lincoln and because, after all this time, he is still regarded as a great president.

Interestingly, many items that we treat are what is considered ephemera, and therefore were originally not meant to last (such as the campaign ribbon, or the cotton transparency sign). This of course means that these items arrive at the studio in quite fragile condition. And although many of these artifacts have been kept carefully, these items that were meant to be short-lived are just inherently delicate. It is also interesting that often a client wants their Lincoln ephemera placed in an archival mount or storage, but does not want to change the look of it (meaning that they want to keep the wrinkles in the paper or fabric, and the marks that make it look old). Perhaps it feels more "authentic" if the object's history of use is still clearly visible.


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Gwen Spicer is a textile conservator in private practice.  Spicer Art Conservation specializes in textile conservation, object conservation, and the conservation of works on paper.  Gwen's innovative treatment and mounting of flags and textiles is unrivaled.   To contact her, please visit her website.

Conserving, then mounting a pair of Leather Gloves with magnets

It has been a while since we at SAC have blogged about magnets. But that is not because magnets have not been on our mind! In fact, we have been quite busy working with them. So we thought that we would share a magnetic mount that we have recently designed. And with it, discuss the idea of using a Universal Standard Language to discuss magnetic mounts, so that they can be understood and replicated by other conservators and mount makers.

The pair of gloves to be mounted had been worn to Abraham Lincoln's funeral on April 19, 1865 in Washington, DC by Robert Van Valkenburgh, a United States Congressman from New York and a Union Army officer.

The gloves are Paris made, as indicated from a stamp that appears inside one glove. They have been owned by the New York State Military Museum for many years and had been in a museum display in the early half of last century. For their upcoming exhibition, the New York State Millitary Museum wanted them again to be included in a short-term display. These 150+ year old gloves are made of fine thin leather, and both gloves together are quite light in weight.

After some humidification, a mount was created where one glove was palm down and the other was palm up. The gloves were quite stiff and misshaped from being wrapped and stored flat. Holes were present from a previous mounting method. The once black color of the outside of the leather had begun to powder and flake, mainly along the fold lines. Due to their fragility, a mount using magnets was created.

Once the shape of the gloves were determined, an internal form using Nomex was created for the fingers and palm for each glove. The thumb was supported separately. Attached to the Nomex were stitched two "L" brackets. They were positioned to support two of the fingers (image below).

The "L" brackets were selected to also support the fingers, as well as the palm of the glove

Nomex layer with the attached steel brackets, also covered with foiled-paper tape.

The brackets were both stitched with button hole thread (top photo above) and covered with foiled paper tape (directly above). The edges of the brackets were outlined with Volara framing tape in order to cushion the hard edges of the steel bracket. This was to be the side that faced the mount. The visible side of either glove was carefully padded out with layers of 1/4" Volara foam.

Internal support and the Glove

Much can be discussed about the nuances of the internal support and the creation of the mount. Both of which are also important, but for this blog, it is the magnet system that we are focusing on.

Block shaped, 1/2"x3/8"x1/8", N42 Neodynimium rare earth magnets were used and secured to the mount. I have begun to think that magnets should be secured to the mount rather than incorporated with the artifact.  For one, the mount can be reused, and having the magnet positioned in place could potentially be useful. Where as if installed in the artifact's internal structure, the magnet might stay there. With the cost of rare earth magnets increasing, and also with the unknown long-term effects, magnets kept within artifacts might be ill advised. Also, keeping an "active device" such as a magnet inside the artifact may cause inadvertent harm. What I mean is that we at SAC often speak of the "one-mindedness" of magnets. Magnets are always "on", and they will jump to a receiving metal as quickly as possible. If you did not know that an artifact had a magnet inside of it you could place it on or near something you actually do not want it to magnetically attach to.

Magnets glued to the Plexiglas and covered with foiled-paper tape.

Positioned magnets with the Volara layer. Thin Volara
was added over the magnets to fill the recess. 

Before the show fabric has been placed on the volara, but here is how the gloves will be positioned when they are displayed.

In each of the papers I have published, or any of the presentations I have given, I talk about magnetic systems as being a three part system; 1) the strength of the magnet, 2) the ferromagnetic material and 3) the gap. As a means to begin to clearly illustrate my system to others, a form of language to describe the system is necessary. How do we begin to think about and write the three parts of a system? Below is my attempt to begin a discussion. The mount description is in brackets and begins with the bottom most layer first. The artifact is listed in italics and the internal structure within the artifact follows within the braces (aka squiggly brackets).

1. The position of the magnet is indicated by an asterisk. The grade and size of the magnet is in parentheses and follows the asterisk: *(grade, shape, size)
2. The ferromagnetic material, is underlined, it's gauge and/or thickness follows in parentheses.
3. The gap layers are in bold.

[Plexiglas, *(N42, block-1/2"x3/8"x1/8"), foil paper tape, Volara tape, show cover fabric] artifact (thin calf leather), {foil paper tape, steel bracket (1/16" thickness), Nomex}

Is this word diagram of mount layers (illustrated below) sufficiently explained so that another conservator or preparator can recreate this magnetic mount? What part of it is not understandable? How does this need to be changed?

Cross section of magnetic mount for gloves.

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Gwen Spicer is a textile conservator in private practice.  Spicer Art Conservation specializes in textile conservation, object conservation, and the conservation of works on paper.  Gwen's innovative treatment and mounting of flags and textiles is unrivaled.   Her current research focuses on the use of rare earth magnets in conservation treatments.  To contact her, please visit her website.

Learn more about magnets and their many uses in the new publications Magnetic Mounting Systems for Museums and Cultural Institutions. Available for purchase at www.spicerart.com/magnetbook.