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Dear colleagues, I am a student of conservation studies specialising in textiles and leather at the University of Cologne. For my diploma thesis I chose the subject: The problems of conservation of ethnological objects made of gut taking the example of a raincoat of the Inuit. Being part of a significant and comprehensive collection of gut clothes in the Ethnological Museum Berlin this gut parka for an adult is dated to the first half of the 19th century. It was manufactured from vertical strips of gut, has a hood and the only decoration are slim strips of seal leather on the sleeve seam, the lower seam on the hood opening. It originates either from Labrador or from north-west Alaska and the Bering Strait respectively. In the course of conservation measurements in the 1970ies tears and missing spots in the material were underlayed with extruded collagen and roughly fixed with a thick linen thread. Additionally the object’s brittle structure was treated with a wax-like lubricant to restore the flexibility permanently. After 30 years the object is now in a serious condition. The lubricant had changed the original properties in a negative way. The material appears oily, transparent, stiff, hard and with a sticky surface. My task is on the one hand the investigation of the lubricant’s mixture and solubility and on the other hand to develop a practical method to remove the lubricant from the gut. The mends shall be evaluated and a proper method to secure the fragile edges be developed too. Experiments concerning possible adhesives will be carried out on dummies. There are several topics I would like to learn about from the perspective of your institutions: - storing conditions of adequate objects, especially concerning temperature and relative humidity - examples of a treatment with a lubricant - aging reaction of the applied substances in the physical and chemical sense - comparable specimens to the Berlin gut parka - examples for original Eskimo repairs - experiences with storage in cold storage rooms
I would be happy to receive any comments, ideas, etc. If you like to contact me on my private e-mail address: textasia@xxxxxxx
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