INSTITUTE OF MUSEUM AND LIBRARY SERVICES GRANT FOR REHOUSING BARK CLOTH
The Conservation Department has completed an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) funded conservation project for the documentation and rehousing of the Museum's Pacific Islands barkcloth.
The collections from Polynesia, Micronesia, Melanesia, Indonesia and Australia are important given their age and rarity. The Museum's earliest accessions (1867 and 1869) of bark cloths and associated manufacturing tools, design and dye materials came through donations of the Boston Athenaeum, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Smithsonian, and the Boston Marine Society. Eight cloths within the Peabody collections are believed to have been originally collected during the U.S. Exploring Expedition of 1838–42. Bark-cloth specimens from the Boston Museum, accessioned in 1899, were collected earlier by Moses Kimball in the first half of the nineteenth century. Kimball amassed his diverse collection from islands including Gilbert (now Kiribati), Carolines, Hawai'i, and Easter. The early collecting efforts of Alexander Agassiz in 1884–85, and the joint extensive expeditions of Agassiz and William McMichael Woodworth during the 1890s to islands such as Cook, Tonga, Fiji, Samoa, Tuvalu, and Society, contributed significantly to the Museum's bark-cloth and photographic collections. Other donations include several bark-cloth coats from Borneo collected by W. H. Furness, III, in 1897; bark cloth from Papua New Guinea and eight pieces from Madik, Australia collected in 1938 by C. D. Crockett.
The IMLS funding supported the photographic documentation, examination, conservation cleaning, treatment, and rehousing of approximately 275 accessioned bark-cloth items from the Pacific. A digital image of each barkcloth item is now linked to each object record in the Museum's EmbARK database. These digital images provide the first means of access, limiting unnecessary physical retrieval and handling of these oversized fragile cloths as well as improving research and visual access to this large collection.
The majority of the examined cloths in the collection are in fair to very good condition. A study of several severely soiled, embrittled, and degrading Samoan bark cloths was initiated as part of this project, with the initial work implemented at the Buffalo State College Art Conservation Department by Joel (Jablonski) Thompson, as a senior specialization project. Her charge was to identify and characterize the materials and components of twelve cloth fragments and to postulate reasons for their severe deterioration. Subsequent to her findings, samples were prepared for gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and for Fourier transform infrared microspectroscopy by independent conservation laboratories to gain further information about the presence of oils, binders, and/or colorants.
The IMLS project provided an opportunity for several conservation interns and volunteers to assist with the examination and stabilization of the cloths. Cleaning by low-suction vacuuming was required for all cloths and many of them required local humidification to soften or reduce storage crease lines. Several cloths required further stabilization because of edge tears or tears at crease lines. Tears were typically repaired using small sections of toned Japanese tissue paper adhered to the rear of the cloth with rice starch paste.
In summary, the Museum's holdings include the 24 cloths exhibited in 2001-2002 (Embedded Nature), over 100 cloths in rolled storage, with the remaining cloths rehoused flat in folders or positioned folded in archival-quality boxes on compactor storage shelving. With the completion of the project, rotation of the bark cloths on exhibition will be possible, ensuring improved preservation of light-sensitive cloths with shorter display periods.
The Peabody Museum hopes that this preservation and documentation project will contribute to the recently publicized mission and objectives of PIMA (Pacific Islands Museum Association) for global museum partnerships and for initiatives that increase knowledge of Pacific collections throughout the world. The Museum is grateful to the Institute of Museum and Library Services for its support of this important conservation project and to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation for support of the Museum's conservation internship program.
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1. Folded bark cloth items
on open storage shelves to be conserved and
rehoused under the IMLS grant project. |
All material copyright © 1998 President and Fellows of Harvard College, all rights reserved
Grants and Awards | IMLS Grant for Prehistoric Metal | IMLS Grant for Rehousing Bark Cloth | Departments | Peabody Museum
www.peabody.harvard.edu/conservation/