International Perspectives on Textile Conservation

ISBN: 1-873132-21-2 • 2001 • $65 • Paper

Textile conservation is an area requiring a vast range of knowledge, understanding and skill to cover all aspects of the care and preservation of the objects involved.

International Perspectives on Textile Conservation presents papers given at two ICOM-CC Textiles Working Group Meetings. The first meeting was held in Amsterdam in October 1994, and the second in Budapest in 1995. Each chapter is written by one or more experts in their particular field of textile conservation. Some cover in detail the requirements of one or more wide-ranging analysis of the skills and knowledge required in certain areas such as adhesive evaluation and the scientific aspects of fabric selection for suppport systems.

Objects discussed range from twelfth- and thirteenth-century Russian textile finds, now stored or on display in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, to early to mid twentieth-century objects made from synthetic materials. A number of aspects of conservation and preservation are covered, ranging from cleaning and restoration to the effects of light damage and atmospheric pollution.

While some of the chapters focus directly on one specific object or group of objects, others present a discussion of the ethical dilemmas faced by textile conservators during their work. Several chapters offer an analysis and discussion of various aspects of training, covering both particular courses now available to conservators in different parts of the world, and a more general discussion of teaching methods and their application to the ethical issues encountered by textile conservators in their day-to-day work.