Cotton gloves

Paul Green <p.r.green [at] leeds__ac__uk> writes

>A colleague of mine recently visited the States and was given some
>lint-free cotton gloves with finger grips to handle manuscript
>material. He found these much better than ordinary lint-free cotton
>gloves or latex rubber gloves. However, we have not been able to
>source these in the UK. Can anyone give us the name and address of a
>supplier in the States or a UK distributor?

We have used such gloves for quite some years and have now some
problems with the grips: they left marks on the objects. Maybe the
gloves are evaporating something, or the too good grip acts with its
adhesion like an eraser. Many frames in our collection show now such
marks on their surface and patina. Similarly there were marks found
on sculptures of metal and porous material with surface dirt
(terracotta, alabaster). You might will get this problem with your
objects and will find after a few years that particular distinct
pattern of dots.

I think our gallery got the gloves from

        Valfrid Ejendal AB
        Box 7, 79321 Leksand
        Sweden
        +46 10 46 247 36 000

I was not involved in the purchase, but found this address in our
supplier-files. Washing those gloves turned out to be a problem too,
because only low temperature washes were possible. They distorted
otherwise. In order to get clean gloves only a huge amount of soap
would "do the trick", but such would be very likely to remain in the
gloves and couldn't be good for the objects. You might be happy
enough with the old traditional lint free cotton gloves, especially
when the objects are not extremely heavy.

Ele von Monschaw
Assistant Conservator
Easel Paintings, National Gallery of Ireland


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 16:8
                 Distributed: Wednesday, July 24, 2002
                        Message Id: cdl-16-8-008
                                  ***