Counting down and this and that…

By the time September comes around and the school holidays are over we begin to think about the winter clean and the colder months ahead.  Although we’ll be wearing every item in our wardrobes in a bid not to get hyperthermia as we work, the winter clean is probably all the team’s favourite time of year.  Less monotonous (but important) vacuuming up and down of show room floors but instead every day is spent up close and personal with the collection as we clean and condition check every item before putting them to bed in their dust covers or acid free tissue paper.  We’ve still got one more open week to go, and as well as all the regular open season cleaning here are a few other things that have gone on in recent weeks:

Ian Tyers, dendrochronolist, returned for further investigation of some of the panel paintings from the Brown Gallery. Check out an earlier blog to find out more http://knolenationaltrust.wordpress.com/2012/07/14/dendrochronology-isnt-easy-to-say/

Another leak in Lady Betty’s Bedroom, just as we were preparing to remove the carpet, we had to stop to get the buckets out! The building work hasn’t got to this end of the East front yet. We can’t wait till it does!

Barbara Villiers (by Sir Peter Lely) returned from the Hampton Court Place ‘The Wild, the Beautiful and the Damned’ exhibition at the beginning of October.

The painting has been on display in the Great Hall since it returned from exhibition. This has been for two reasons. 1: to reacclimatise the painting back to the environmental conditions back at Knole. 2: The Spangled Dressing Room where she would normally hang is being used as a temporary store room during the first phase of the external building repairs. It is full of furniture and paintings from other show rooms in the first half and there is not enough space to squeeze Barbara in too!

Furniture in the Museum Room has been covered in Tyvek to protect it from dust and debris before the removal of the render on the exterior wall.

Dust and debris that has found its way in to the Billiard Room, so a good job the Campaign Chair has its dust cover on!

Packing up the contents of Lady Betty’s rooms was hard work, but we had fun too! Lisa (volunteer Conservation Assistant) thinks about an image change!

Lucy, Emily and Helen enjoyed the Attingham Trust’s 60th Anniversary Conference. It was very interesting to hear from a range of speakers as enthused about our country houses as us 3 geeks!

Sarah cleans the pelmet from Lady Betty’s Sitting Room.

Our wonderfully tidy emergency salvage store. We’ve recently relocated and restocked the store room as part of the revision of emergency planning. We had a lot of items delivered and it got in to a bit of a mess while we didn’t have the time to sort through all the equipment. Lucy and Zena (volunteer Conservation Assistant) spent a chilly afternoon sorting it all out.

This year’s winter clean will be filmed on our time lapse camera, so you can follow our work every step of the way!

Emily, Melinda, Sarah and Lucy

One in, one out!

At the end of May I returned to Dulwich Picture Gallery (DPG) to oversee the de-installation of our Van Dyck portrait of Sofonisba Anguissola.  She was the last painting to come down, 2 days after the end of ‘Van Dyck in Scilly’ exhibition.  The gallery art handlers removed her from the wall to a table for the conservator and I to check.

One of the mitre joints of the frame that has opened up in the drier conditions at the DPG. If Knole had environmental control our relative humidity levels would be nearer to that of the DPG, and any change would not seem so drastic. This is why we have to allow for periods of acclimatisation when objects go on loan.

Using a condition report carried out before the exhibition when the painting first arrived at the DPG, we assessed the painting to see if there had been any change in condition or deterioration to the painting surface or picture frame.  The environmental conditions in the gallery are controlled and within the desired limits of 50 – 60% relative humidity (RH).  This is however much lower, and drier, than the RH at Knole.  The paint layer although fragile appeared to have no change in condition, and the frame seemed ok too.  However the mitre joints did appear to have opened up.  This will have occurred because the wood has lost a small amount of moisture in the drier conditions.

I examined the painting again once it had been delivered to Knole and using soft goat hair brushes I carefully removed dust from the frame and painting.

However there are not any other signs of physical stress to the frame and we are confident that as the frame re-acclimatises back to Knole’s RH levels and takes on moisture again the joints will close up again as the wood swells.  The painting and frame are being closely monitored during the re-acclimatisation period, it has been in the Great Hall for a week now.  The RH is higher in  here than at the DPG but lower than the Leicester Gallery where it normally hangs.  Providing the RH in the Leicester Gallery is not excessively high at the end of the week we hope she will be hung by the weekend, just as another portrait has left…

Sofonisba has been in the Great Hall re-acclimatising. A sheet of acid free tissue has been place over the painting to prevent dust settling on the surface.

…Now it was the turn of our portrait of Thomas Sackville, 1^st Earl of Dorset, which hangs in the Great Hall to go on loan.  It was collected on Wednesday and delivered to the National Portrait Gallery (NPG).  The painting is very similar to a painting already in the NPG. Both pictures are attributed to the significant Elizabethan and Jacobean artist, John de Critz the elder.

I supervised the art handlers taking down, wrapping and carrying the painting to the lorry.  I also checked it was secure and properly supported.

Thomas Sackville is carefully wrapped by the art handlers. It is a panel painting made of 3 oak panels joined with strips of Hessian on the back.

Extra padding was required for the name plate that protrudes from the bottom of the picture frame.

Recent research and tracings taken of both the paintings at Knole and the NPG has revealed that they correspond very closely. The exhibition at the NPG, entitled “Double Take” will explore the nature of versions and copies of 16^th century portraits by pairing five key portraits from the Galleries collections with other surviving versions.*

In the lorry and ready to go. The painting was soft wrapped in layers of acid free tissue paper and bubble wrap. Extra padding was put on the corners, and the it is wrapped in a blanket before being secured with webbing straps.

Emily

*You can find out more about the exhibition at the NPGs website
http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/display/2012/double-take-versions-and-copies-of-tudor-portraits.php

Conservation of Thomas Sackville’s picture frame

The portrait of Thomas Sackville hanging in the Great Hall attributed to John de Critz dates to about 1601. Last week a frame conservator from Tankerdale* came to do some consolidation work to the frame before going on loan to the National Portrait Gallery as a part of their upcoming ‘Double Take’ exhibition.

Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset

Siobhan and Dan (Tankerdale conservator) carry Thomas Sackville to the Ballroom where a workspace was created.

Here are some notes from the condition report carried out by Dan, the conservator, on the history of the frame and its condition before treatment, and the treatment process carried out.

Object description:   The elaborate frame is unique and perhaps belongs to the 1620s; it has been altered at the corners to fit the picture. Unusually for such an intricately carved English frame of this date, it is in pine rather than oak. In style the paired scrolls at the centres owe something to the Sansovino style in framing, popular in Venice, but there are other influences at work, still to understand. As originally finished the elaborate carvings would have been brightly gilt, standing out against a blue background. Much of the gilding is now obscured by bronze overpaint which also hides all but a few traces of the blue paintwork. We shall see other early frames with rather similar paired scrolls, some with painted backgrounds, in the Ballroom and Cartoon Gallery.

Condition assessment
Structure: Mitre corners have opened slightly, but are stable.  Otherwise sound.

The split is where the mitre joint is opening up.

Surface: Gold and blue original surface can be seen in a few places, although it is mostly obscured by a later brown paint and bronze powder scheme.

The different layers of decoration

Treatment process:

Hot rabbit skin glue was applied to the surface of the frame (9 parts deionised water : 1 part granules), and the softened curling/flaking decoration was gently eased back into place, to adhere to the substrate.  Excess rabbit skin glue was cleaned off the surface with warm water.

The painted panel was removed from the frame, and conservation grade felt was inserted into the rebate before the painted panel was refitted into the frame.  8 new brass plates were applied to the back of the frame to secure the painted panel.

The flaking areas of decoration have now been consolidated with rabbit skin glue

No losses to the frame decoration were filled or re-touched on this occasion, the primary reason for conservation was to make the frame safe for exhibition.  Further work on the frame will need discussion on how the conserved appearance of the frame should look.

Sarah, Melinda, Emily and Lucy

*  You can find out more about Tankerdale via their website:
http://www.tankerdale.co.uk/

From one huge drafty old palace to another!

A foggy Friday morning at Knole saw another painting from the collection heading off to spend the summer on loan. This time it was the turn of Barbara Villiers’ portrait by Sir Peter Lely to travel to Hampton Court Palace where it will be displayed as part of the upcoming exhibition, ‘The Wild, The Beautiful and The Damned’. This temporary exhibition will explore the lives and loves of those who bought excitement and scandal to the Stuart Court.  

Usually hanging in the Spangled Dressing Room, the painting is used to experiencing large fluctuations in relative humidity so has spent several weeks in the Great Hall, one of very few rooms at Knole with conservation heating, acclimatising to a more stable environment which it can expect at Hampton Court.

Before leaving Knole, the painting was assessed for its suitability for travel by several conservators, including a painting specialist and a frame specialist. Despite the painting being in a very good condition, the frame was in a poor state of repair and some remedial conservation work was undertaken before the painting could travel safely. This work included stabilising the flaking gilt which was coming away to reveal the wooden frame beneath. Siobhan undertook one last condition check before the painting left the building. The report will be used when the painting reaches Hampton Court, to assess if any damage has occurred during the move.

The crate, weighing 229kg (over 35 stone!)

The painting was to be moved by a specialist removals company,Gander and White, who would pack the portrait and transport it to the exhibition. The crate in which it would travel was much too large and heavy to be carried into the Great Hall for packing so a temporary travelling frame was made so that the painting could be safely taken to the lorry and secured inside the crate.

The temporary travelling frame.

The first step was to make sure the travelling frame would be weather-proof so a polythene backing was added to the bare frame to keep out moisture.

Polythene being fixed to the back of the travelling frame.

A number of T brackets were fixed to the back of the portrait so that the painting could be secured in place within the temporary frame.

T plates being fixed on to the pack of the frame.

The painting was then screwed into the temporary frame and the team checked that it was securely fixed.

Cotton tapes were fixed across the front of the frame to brace another layer of polythene which would seal the painting inside and protect it from the elements.

The Gander and White team then took Barbara out to the lorry and secured her into the storage crate. The crate was lined with plastazote, an inert, foam like material into which the travelling frame was fitted. This would give some additional protection to the painting during transit. Once the lid was on the crate, it was moved into place and strapped to the side of the lorry, again for extra protection during the move.

Once the crate was strapped in place, the portrait was at last ready to go! You can see Barbara Villiers at ‘The Wild, the Beautiful and the Damned’ Exhibition at Hampton Court Palace from 5^th April to 30^th September 2012.

Lucy

More information can be found at :
http://www.hrp.org.uk/HamptonCourtPalace/WhatsOn/TheWildtheBeautifulandtheDamned?

Van Dyck goes to Dulwich

One of our Van Dyck portraits has been loaned to the Dulwich Picture Gallery (DPG) for their exhibition ‘Van Dyck in Sicily: painting and the plague, 1624 – 2′.  The portrait of  Sofonisba Anguissola usually lives in the Leicester Gallery.  When any object leaves Knole on loan, each stage of its transport is supervised by a member of National Trust staff to make sure nothing happens to it along the way that could cause damage.  On this occasion it was Helen our House and Collections Manager.

Van Dyck portrait of the Italian artist Sofonisba Anguissola

After spending several weeks acclimatising to lower relative humidity (RH) levels in the Great Hall, in preparation for the levels of RH it will experience in the DPG, a specialist art handling company came to wrap her for transit.  The portrait was wrapped in polythene and once in the van wrapped with blankets and strapped in.

Once delivered to the DPG it was taken to the exhibition gallery and left wrapped until a National Trust courier arrived on the installation day.  The courier can be a member of the property conservation team the object has come from, the regional conservator or our Registrar that manages all object loans.  On this occasion it was me!

DPG technicians unwrap the painting.

Once the portrait was unwrapped it was examined by myself and Sophie Plender, an independent painting conservator, using its most recent condition report to check that there had been no change in the condition of the frame or painting during transit.  The frame and painting are not in great condition, although stable enough to travel and go on display.  The conclusion was that there was no change in its condition, however…

… we did discover some holes in the frame…woodworm holes!  This could be a serious problem.  If the holes are fresh new holes then the frame would have a live infestation and all the other frames in the gallery are at risk of becoming infested.

The offending woodworm holes, 2 of about 10 that we found.

Sophie and I could not find any other evidence to suggest that this was an active infestation, but you never be 100% certain.  As DPG were arranging for another painting to go for Thermo Lignum* treatment (an intensive heat treatment that will kill off the woodworm), they wanted Sofonisba to go too as a precautionary measure.  Knowing the painting was in a fragile condition, with existing paint losses, it wasn’t a decision I could make alone and needed some advice.  After several phone calls between Helen, Fernanda (the NT registrar), Siobhan (Knole’s conservator) and the NTs painting conservator, it was decided that the painting could not be treated but the frame could be.  So I asked Sophie to remove the painting from its frame, so the frame could be taken off that afternoon to go for treatment.

The frame was wrapped in polythene once more and loaded in to the art handlers van to go to Thermo Lignum.  After an exhausting morning I caught the train back to Knole.  Had the frame not had to go for treatment I would had to have witnessed the picture being hung on the wall.  However the next day Fernanda went to the DPG to see the painting and frame reunited and hung on the wall ready for the exhibition opening on the 14th February.

Emily