Mexican feather mosaic

Ellen Pearlstein <epearlstein [at] hotmail__com> writes

>I am assisting a group of art historians who are interested in the
>technology and conservation of Mexican feather mosaics. These were
>part of a pre-columbian tradition for decoration that continued and
>was modified to produce Christian imagery in the colonial era. I
>would be interested in hearing about any technical studies or
>conservation treatment work that has been performed on these
>objects.

A paper was published describing the cleaning of mold from a piece
of feather art at the Instituto Colombiano de Antropologia, using a
0.05% solution of thymol in ethyl alcohol.  The paper includes a
discussion of feather art and details of how the piece being treated
was crafted.  The reference is:

    Castillo, J.E., F. Anaya, and V. Garcia.  1999.
    El tapiz de plumas de la coleccion del ICAN: un caso de
    biodeterioro.  Restauracion Hoy 10:52-62.

John E. Simmons
Collection Manager, Natural History Museum and Biodiveristy Research
Center and Coordinator, Museum Studies Program
University of Kansas
1345 Jayhawk Boulevard
Lawrence, Kansas 66045-7561
785-864-4508
Fax: 785-864-5335


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 16:34
                 Distributed: Friday, November 22, 2002
                       Message Id: cdl-16-34-011
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