Toys

ANZAC Day, The Sydney Morning Herald and a Dolls House

Published by Margaret Simpson 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Dolls house "Charlaine", 1946. Gift of Elaine Molloy, 2009. Powerhouse Museum Collection, 2009/32/1.

What do ANZAC Day, The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper and this dolls house in the Museum’s collection have in common? The answer is a heartfelt story which began when Charlie Sellers, who worked as a linotype foreman in the compositing section of the Herald, promised to build his youngest daughter, Elaine, a dolls house.
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Back to school, Florence’s 1908 exercise book

Published by Margaret Simpson 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Florence Breaden's school exercise book. Collection: Powerhouse Museum, 2010/65/1. Gift of Rowley Gilliland, 2010

This time of year Mums and Dads are busy buying all the exercise books, pencil cases, folders and laptops for the beginning of the school year. School has certainly changed in 100 years or so. A little while ago I acquired a gorgeous school exercise book owned by Florence Breaden (1893-1929) in 1908 who attended Petersham School in an inner Sydney suburb. I think it’s a homework book because it covers a range of subjects including Arithmetic, English, Geography, Poetry and Music, and was used from February to the end of the school year. As a diligent 15-year-old, Florence carefully illustrated her book with the most beautiful pen and ink title pages, half title pages and borders, all illustrated with flowers, rabbits, foxes, chickens, swans, birds and a woman riding a horse side saddle.

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Leslie Walford AM, 1927-2012

Published by Lindie Ward 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

A bear with fond memories, 86/1053 Leslie Walford's teddy bear, Collection: Powerhouse Museum

In 1986 Leslie Walford donated a flamboyant collection of clothing and memorabilia to the Powerhouse Museum. Including this charming musical teddy bear. It was a gift from his father who died when Walford was two. This little toy has now outlasted its owner and will be fondly associated with Walford’s exuberant and generous personality. Walford remarked – He seems to be a bear of quality and his expressive features indicate his benign character.

The donation included Walford’s Mr Fish psychedelic shirts, Nutters of Saville Row suits, a kangaroo skin coat, an Yves Saint Laurent safari suit and set of Christian Dior ties. The collection tells of a time during the 1960s and 1970s when men’s clothing was exciting and exuberant.

86/1036, 86/1030, back of Mr Fish's psychedelic shirt and Milano trousers. Collection: Powerhouse Museum

Leslie Walford’s dramatic aesthetic perfectly suited this time. His perspective on interior design was eclectic and colourful and led to a very distinguished career. After studying in Paris and London he became a prime mover in this field in Australia and served on numerous committees and foundations including the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Powerhouse Museum.

Walford’s Double Bay penthouse was bursting with intriguing stories reflecting his life and objects such as Fortuny silk lanterns and paintings by Jeffrey Smart that he collected through his extensive interests, friends and travels. In 2010 he received the Member of the Order of Australia for service to the performing arts and to the profession of interior design.
Leslie Walford will be sadly missed.

Santa Claus, Kris Kringle, Pelz Nicol and Father Christmas

Published by Anni Turnbull 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Although many countries call Father Christmas by other names the tradition of making Christmas decorations have familiar characters and colours, often rotund male figures with long white beards dressed in red and white. I found these delightful and somewhat unusual representations in our collection. They are part of a larger donation from the Monica Piddington Memorial Trust and were a gift from the Jindera Pioneer Museum to the Powerhouse Museum in in 1970.

Monica Piddington (1899-1967 )was born at Narrandera, NSW, and became a kindergarten teacher. In the 1930s she went on to become the first director of the famous Sydney Playways educational toy shop which opened in Dalley Street, near Circular Quay, and was owned by the Kindergarten Union. Apparently Monica travelled around the world collecting toys of ‘superior design, craftsmanship and quality’ making them available to Australian teachers, parents and children. Many of her toys seem to mainly come from Scandinavian countries. In the 1960s the shop moved to Clarence Street. After the Kindergarten Union decided to sell the business, it was taken over by the staff, all Early Childhood graduates, and re-opened as the Play House Toy Shop which operated from 1989 until 2007.

Post by Anni Turnbull

R.I.P. Colonel Sherman T Potter (actor Harry Morgan) 1915-2011

Published by Rebecca Bower 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

2003/111/34-5 Detail of cast of M*A*S*H from toy packaging, 1978. Collection: Powerhouse Museum

Like most Australians in the 1970s, my family were addicted to MASH, the witty and acerbic television show about life in a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War. Every night at 7pm we would eat our dinner in front of the telly watching the antics of Hawkeye, Klinger, Hot Lips Houlihan, Frank Burns, Radar and others at the 4077th. I am sure it never occurred to me that the program gave substance to a real event. What did I know or care about the Korean War?

When the lovable commander of the camp, Colonel Henry Blake died, I was devastated. I cried during that episode and bitterly resented the new guy who was cast to replace him. I didn’t like the curmudgeonly Colonel Sherman T Potter and I suspect I wasn’t the only one. He was – dare I say it – old! He didn’t seem to fit the pace of the show in my nine year old mind. Morgan was quoted as saying of himself

I don’t know just why they called me, to be perfectly frank. In the third year, I played a sort of crazy general in one episode, and they liked me.

Progressively though, as his character developed and settled into the show ‘Sherm’ became one of my favourite characters. He had a twinkle in his eye and a cheeky grin, he loved his horse and when he lost his temper it made me laugh. His character certainly struck a chord with the audience. Morgan won an Emmy in 1980 for his portrayal of Potter. When the final episode of MASH aired in 1983 it is reputed to have been one of the most watched shows in US television history. The death of Harry Morgan at the grand age of 96 is a great loss to the film and television world and MASH lovers everywhere.

Toy, M*A*S*H Head Quarters, licenced from the television show 'M*A*S*H', 1981. Collection: Powerhouse Museum

We have a number of toys in the Powerhouse Museum collection that were made under licence in 1978 to the MASH television show. They feature a picture of the cast, including Colonel Potter, on the packaging and probably date to Season 6 of the television show. These toys are part of a much larger group that were assembled by a private collector, who was quite particular in what he acquired. He only collected toy vehicles and robots licensed from television, film, comics books and so on. He never opened the packaging and did not play with the toys, so when they came to the Museum’s collection they were still in mint condition.

Collection of toy army vehicles licenced from the tv show M*A*S*H, 1978. Collection: Powerhouse Museum

Merchandising associated with successful television shows was not a new phenomenon. As early as the 1960s toy companies recognised the marketing opportunity of linking with popular tv programs. An ubiquitous product with a label linking it to a particular show could sell for more money than one without. This phenomenon really exploded in the 1980s with the boom in mass production and the increased use of plastic in toy construction. For popular culture junkies of a certain age, *cough*, these old style toys are a way of remembering the favourite programs of their youth.

But I digress. For people of my generation their first exposure to Harry Morgan was through Sherman T Potter and MASH. For my parents’ generation and older he was much more widely known for his roles in westerns, war and gangster films from the 1940s onwards and was a constant presence on American television from the 1950s. His career didn’t end with MASH. For the next two decades Morgan continued to be active in film and television. Harry Morgan had a long and varied career. For me though, he will always be Colonel Sherman T Potter and will live on in MASH reruns in perpetuity.

Science Underground: Exotic Theatre of the South Seas

Published by Margaret Simpson 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

85/1042 French children’s toy theatre, “La Pleine Mer” (The Open Sea), 1836, showing the three main elements, a sea background, waves in the centre and tropical vegetation foreground. Collection: Powerhouse Museum

After working at this Museum for decades I still find it breathtaking uncovering the treasures we have buried away down in our vaults. An academic from New Zealand emailed me to have a look at a French children’s toy theatre, “La Pleine Mer” (The Open Sea). I vaguely knew about it but never got it all out. What an amazing and incredibly rare object. You can think of it as natural history and French exploration colliding with education and entertainment for children.

The theatre has 27 printed and hand-coloured lithographic cardboard pieces with scenes set in the South Pacific. The backdrop has two French ships under sail, the middle ground a vaudeville-style group of five waves to give a bit of depth and a foreground of lush tropical vegetation around a reef battered by breakers.

The theatre, which was made J. Pintard, Rue Saint-Jacques, Paris, in 1836, has 6 scripts (in French) and lithographs produced by Charles Letaille. The idea was that an adult or older child read the script while younger children slid in or attached a number of loose pieces including boats and individual figures inserted into the scene as directed in the play.

Collection Powerhouse Museum

This all sounds fairly standard for a children’s toy theatre until you look carefully at the content of the script, which we’ve had translated. They give the most amazing and exotic descriptions of maritime adventures and aspects of Australia, New Zealand, the Solomon Islands and New Guinea in the 1830s which couldn’t be more further removed from the lives of the wealthy French children for whom it was made.

One play, “The Whale” describes a whale hunt and tells children about the uses of whale products (whale rib bones for umbrellas and whale fat boiled on board in large vats for oil). It concludes with the gruesome description of the crampon-wearing sailors climbing over the carcass of the whale tied to the side of the ship to remove the ribs, skin and fat.

Detail of a scene from the toy theatre’s “The Shark” play. Collection: Powerhouse Museum

Another one, “The Shark” begins with a deceptively tranquil description of a ship becalmed in the hot tropics. The pace picks up quickly with nail biting anticipation as it is revealed that the ship’s master is repeatedly diving from the ship hauling himself up on a rope to cool off from the heat while a short distance away a shark’s fin creates a “frothing shimmering wake”. Climbing into a small boat, the sailors go to his rescue. Gripped with fear they “could all foresee the struggle that was about to take place between themselves and the shark; a terrible struggle with a man as the contest”. Ironically, the victim in the play ends up being the 16-foot shark which is split open by the ship’s cook. In a play which initially evokes terror the mood is transformed into humour when the sailors discover that a man’s otter-skin hat belonging to the ship’s doctor is inside the shark’s stomach. (Clothes and belongings hung over the side of ships were regularly eaten by sharks).

Inspiration for theatre’s “The Shark” scene was taken from John Singleton Copley’s 1778 painting “Watson and the Shark” in the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. Image: Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

The really interesting thing about the lithographic images and the content of the plays can be traced to paintings, books and journals of the period. According to Louise Mitchell, a former Powerhouse Curator, who wrote about the theatre in her article “La Pleine Mer Sailing over a cardboard sea” in “The Australian Antique Collector”, in 1988, the lithograph depicting New Holland natives tumbling from their capsized canoe while spearing fish, can be traced to an illustration by the Scottish engraver and miniaturist, John Heaviside Clark (c.1777-1863). Clark had never seen Australian aborigines but adhered to the popular European imagery of them as being noble and savage sportsmen. The illustration appeared in a book published in London in 1813 with the title “Field sports … of the Native Inhabitants of New South Wales”. The shark attack lithograph was derived from the well-known American romantic horror-painting of 1778 by John Singleton Copley (1738-1815) “Watson and the Shark”.

In keeping with most toymakers of the period, the theatre’s manufacturer, Pintard produced a variety of toys and related material aimed at educating children in art, geography, scripture, history and natural history. This theatre looked at navigation, maritime life, exploration, geography and the people of the Pacific. Advertising his stock at the conclusion of the “La Pleine Mer” script, he claimed that the moral teaching in its purest form is the basis of all these little educational works. Not only is this toy probably one of the earliest in our collection directly related to Australia but the stories, the humour, the melodrama and images are as fresh today as they were in 1836.

Miss Vanderfield’s Doll’s House

Published by Margaret Simpson 2 Comments Tags: , , , , .

2008/121/1 Janet Vanderfield's doll's house, 1942. Collection: Powerhouse Museum

It was a Tuesday morning. I was working on a PowerPoint presentation – a training session for our Museum volunteers, a couple of meetings were scheduled, labels were due at our Print Media department, public enquiries needed attention and the never-diminishing pile of acquisition documentation beckoned, then the phone rang. A softly-spoken older woman, Janet Vanderfield, wanted to know if we’d be interested in having her doll’s house. I immediately created a list in my head of the doll’s houses already in the Museum’s collection. There’s a modern one by Dinosaur Designs ; the 1930s one fashioned from an agricultural machinery packing case used on a property near Gunnedah, in North-west NSW; the tin-printed Mettoy one from the 1950s; one made from match sticks; a charming carved one by the British toymaker Yootha Rose; and the fabulous, over-the-top, 20-room Bosdyk doll’s house acquired last year and at least a couple more. We had lots already!

Nevertheless, I asked if it would be possible for her to take some photos of it and email them to me. No email, no problem, prints through the post would be fine. And would you happen to have any photos of yourself as a girl with the doll’s house? I always check, just in case. You’ll have a look. Excellent. I’ll look forward to seeing them.

Janet Vanderfield aged 7 in 1942. Image courtsey Janet Vanderfield

A couple of weeks passed and a small envelope arrived with the requested photos. On top was a copy of a grainy photo of shy, 7-year-old Janet Vanderfield taken on Christmas Day in 1942 in the backyard of her Hurlstone Park (a Sydney suburb) home with her impressive Christmas present, a fine mock-Tudor doll’s house. It had been carefully carried out into the sunshine and Janet dressed in her best white voile dress for photos to send to grandma and the aunties in Scotland.

The other photos in the envelope Janet had taken herself depicted the doll’s house and its furniture, a microcosm of 1940s upper middle-class domestic life when entertainment came from the wireless in the lounge room and refrigeration was provided by the ice chest in the kitchen.

I learnt later that the doll’s house had been purchased unfurnished from the famous Sydney toy and model shop, Walther & Stevenson Ltd. Over a 5-year period Janet would often travel into “town” on the tram with her mother or auntie attired in hats and gloves and go into Walther & Stevenson’s to select a piece of furniture for the doll’s house. This phenomenon of the child collector was common in the 1930s and 40s, some children built up impressive lead toy farm sets and others Hornby train layouts.

2008/121/1-14:16 Doll's house lounge room furniture. Can you spot the missing fire iron? Collection: Powerhouse Museum

Only special “careful” friends were allowed to play with Janet’s doll’s house. Auntie made the curtains, bedspread and cushions, and father put in the chunky 1940s electric lights. When she had outgrown the doll’s house Janet’s mother had tried to encourage her to give it to a nearby children’s home but Janet had received so much enjoyment gradually collecting the furniture she couldn’t part with it. The doll’s house remained in Janet’s possession for 66 years, immaculately maintained throughout her life and over that time only one small piece, a fireplace fire iron, had been lost. Although tempted to add contemporary pieces to the doll’s house she resisted.

2008/121/1 Interior shot of the doll's house with 'Doll's House Dolly'. Collection: Powerhouse Museum

Because doll’s houses are bulky items to store once children have outgrown them they are not often kept and relatively few survive. If they do it’s extremely unusual for the original loose furniture to be retained as it’s always vulnerable to separation, change and loss over time. For Janet, an only child who never married, there was never the temptation to let her own children or nieces and nephew play with the doll’s house. It remained intact, a time capsule of Australian domestic social history and childhood in the early 1940s.

For Janet to give up her precious doll’s house with all its memories of her childhood and family must have been a wrench. I carefully documented her memories of it, and when it was chosen for display in the new acquisitions showcase in the Museum’s foyer, I invited Janet in and photographed it with her. She was delighted and was grateful to me for making the whole process of relinquishing her doll’s house easier.

Janet Vanderfield with her doll's house on display in the Museum in 2008

The Museum has a large collection of toys, purchased in the 1980s, from an adult collector. They are a superb group of mainly tin toys and Hornby trains which have great visual appeal but they have no stories or memories associated with their use. Accordingly, Miss Vanderfield’s doll’s house was a wonderful acquisition and I feel privileged to have been involved in recording and perpetuating the memory of its use.

P.S. Later that year I went on to acquire yet another doll’s house with a completely different story and memories. It was made by staff at The Sydney Morning Herald and presented to eleven-year-old Elaine Sellers in 1946. Elaine’s father, Charles Sellers (Charlie), had always promised to make her a doll’s house. He was a very popular staff member at the ‘Herald’ working in the Compositing Section of the famous Sydney newspaper. After he tragically died of Malaria in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in Thailand in 1945 his colleagues at the ‘Herald’ decided to do something for Elaine and made the doll’s house. As a Curator I see my role increasingly being about recording these types of memories and stories.

There are other posts about the Bosdyk Doll’s House

We are off to Steamfest 2011 with Hornby toy trains

Published by Margaret Simpson 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Hornby train Image Powerhouse Museum

Powerhouse staff members are again off to Maitland, in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales, this weekend to contribute to one of Australia’s most well-known heritage steam events, Steamfest.

Each year a theme is selected and a group of objects chosen by a curator to take up for a special display in the Powerhouse marquee. The conservators take great care in packing the objects, often into especially-made boxes, to ensure safe transportation to the rally site.

This year’s display focuses on a O-gauge scale Hornby toy steam locomotives, rolling stock, and the wonderfully evocative line-side accessories depicting the halcyon days of the British railways in the early 20th century. The toy trains are up to 90 years’ old and too precious to operate but will be displayed in engaging vignettes.

Hornby Pull apart train: Image Powerhouse Museum

Hornby Trains were the brainchild of Frank Hornby who, in 1901, also invented that other great early 20th century toy popular all over the world, Meccano. In fact, the first toy steam locomotives (85/2582-57) and rolling stock made at Meccano Ltd’s Liverpool factory in 1920 could be taken apart like the Meccano construction toy. It was soon realised that boys wanted to operate the trains not take them apart.

Collection Powerhouse Museum


Collection Powerhouse Museum

By the late 1920s both Hornby clockwork and electric locomotives and were being made in the liveries of the “Big Four” private railway companies operating in Britain at the time. True to the multi-tiered British class system these ranged from relatively inexpensive tin plate sets to the top-of-the-line No. 2 Special 4-4-0 LNER (London and North Eastern Railway) locomotive Bramham Moor. (85/2582-5).

Tanker Collection Powerhouse Museum

Snow plough Collection Powerhouse Museum

Crane Collection Powerhouse Museum

Barrell wagon Collection Powerhouse Museum

A bewildering array of Hornby rolling stock was developed from wagons and flat top trucks to tankers. These often had extra “play” value with rotary and side tipping mechanisms, trucks with cranes which could be lowered and swung (85/2585-217), and barrel wagons (85/2585-148) to load and unload. An item of rolling stock not terribly well known to Australian children was the snow plough (85/2585-279), with specially heavy wheels and a spring belt which ran around a v-pulley on the leading axle to drive the Meccano fan or “snow pusher”.

Biscuit van Collection Powerhouse Museum

Banana van Collection Powerhouse Museum


Chocolate van Collection Powerhouse Museum

The so-called “Private Owner Vans” added charm and realism to the Hornby series and were made from 1923 until 1941. The rarest and most sought after item, the equivalent of the 1930 penny to Hornby collectors, is the “Colman’s Mustard” van, produced between 1923 and 1924. The Carr’s, Crawford’s and Jacob’s biscuit vans were popular, so too were the “Fyffes Bananas” van from 1931. A personal favourite of mine is the “Cadbury’s Chocolates” van (85/2585-56) which hit the shelves in 1932.

Water tower, goods shed and station Collection Powerhouse Museum

And to make your railway layout more realistic, a range of line-side accessories appeared from 1921 with a Meccano-based lattice girder bridge, a station called “Windsor”, followed by a tunnel and signal box (85/2586-25).

Signal box and engine shed Collection Powerhouse Museum

Signals, crossings, water towers, turntables and buffer beams were all made. Whereas the rolling stock was enamelled the line-side buildings were beautifully lithographed, the most detailed was the enormous double-track engine house (85/2586-130) introduced in 1928. Some of the stations and goods sheds (85/2586-7) were even lit by electricity from the late 1930s.

Dinky toys Collection Powerhouse Museum

Other trackside accessories for avid Hornby collectors included lithographed tinplate suitcases, platform machines and milk churns. And to populate your set, lead passengers, station and engineering staff came out in 1932 and Hornby’s Dinky Toys, (2008/158/1) comprising cars scaled to fit the 0-gauge layouts from the mid-1930s.

Hornby Railway Club form Collection Powerhouse Museum

Hornby was one of the first manufacturers to actively brand their products with an inspired sales programme. A yearly catalogue, The Hornby Book of Trains, contained details of trains sets and much information about full size trains written in a lively and informative manner. Boys and girls could belong to the Hornby Railway Company, formed in 1929 and received a badge and handbook. Application forms were in every box. Branches were created in the larger British towns and some in conjunction with schools. In the 1930s if an item was not in stock, it could be ordered and arrived from Liverpool within seven days. The whole Hornby system was very reliable and repairs, if needed, easily undertaken at the local agent and returned mended in a special repair box a week later.

For decades the Australian agents for Meccano and Hornby Trains were E.G. Page & Co. Pty Ltd, of The Meccano Depot, 52 Clarence Street, Sydney, moving to the Danks Building at 324 Pitt Street from about 1942 until 1955. Annual sales and promotional visits were made to the State capitals with a special display at Sydney’s Royal Easter Show where their advertising read “Hornby Trains Clockwork & Electric – British and Guaranteed”. Orders were placed directly with E.G. Page & Co. who passed them on to Meccano Ltd with dispatch made directly back to the retailers. Page carried out most of the train repairs on the Sydney premises. With typical Hornby precision, a clockwork locomotive spring change was undertaken in only 15 minutes including a test run of the locomotive hauling a load around an oval track seven times.

Hornby Club certificate Collection Powerhouse Museum

E.G. Page & Co. also processed the application forms for the Hornby Railway Company membership in Australia. A letter and badge (2007/223/1) were sent out from the Sydney office and the applicant’s form was then forwarded to Liverpool (GB) for registration. In 1950 the patient Australian applicant had to wait 10 to 12 weeks for Meccano Ltd to forward out their membership certificate and Hornby Railway Company booklet by seamail. The wording and appearance of the certificate resembled a legal document and no doubt made the new member feel he was part of a worldwide club. In 1950 it read: Hornby Railway Company, At a Directors’ Meeting, held at the Headquarters in the City of Liverpool, County of Lancaster, on the (date, name and State typed in), was elected a Member of the Company and is entitled to the full benefits of Membership. In Witness Whereof, this certificate has been issued. Signed, Roland G. Hornby, Chairman.

Two years after Frank Hornby’s death in 1936 the firm introduced the smaller Hornby Dublo (00-gauge) table top trains which were more affordable and convenient than the 0-gauge. Post-war houses were getting smaller and there was less room for the big railway sets. This gauge became the most popular type for toy trains for the next 50 years. From then on no further effort was devoted to 0-gauge trains and by the 1960s their popularity had diminished. Today, model railway production is aimed at adult collectors and is increasingly distant from the traditional children’s toy railways of yesteryear. Many of the original collectors have kept and added to their interwar childhood 0-gauge toy railway layouts with stations, tunnels, landscapes and rolling stock often forming a historical diorama of twentieth century land transport.

James Bond’s Goldfinger Aston Martin DB5

Published by Margaret Simpson 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Collection: Powerhouse Museum

With the new spy exhibition on at the Museum I thought I’d write about what was probably the most popular diecast toy car ever produced, the gold Aston Martin DB5 as seen in the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger. It was made by Corgi, the English toy car manufacturer established in 1956 by Mettoy. Corgi cars had exciting (for the time) features like plastic windows from 1956, spring suspension from 1959 and opening doors, folding seats and opening bonnets from 1963.

The James Bond Aston Martin DB5 has a front machine gun, rear bullet-proof shield, and best of all, an operating front passenger ejector seat. When it came out the car was a huge success. It was said that in staff cafeterias all over Britain, before giving the toy to their sons, fathers would be seen “testing” the mechanism that fired the gunman through the opening roof, covering their teacups to stop James Bond’s unwanted passenger from dropping in. Another slightly larger version of the car was released in 1968 painted silver with rotating number plates and telescopic tyre slashers.

One of the reasons why Corgi cars were especially popular in the 1960s was the attractively-designed boxes with lots of extras, inserts and instructions. This example in our collection has all the packaging including the genuine “007” stickers, amazingly still attached to their original backing, which the owner of the car was supposed to hide under his shirt collar or coat lapel. Yes play was unsophisticated in those days and English boys were still wearing coats in the 1960s.

The James Bond Aston Martin was launched in November 1965 and was acclaimed as the Toy of the Year by the British National Association of toy retailers. During its three-year production run it became one of the most popular toys ever made with nearly three million sold. It was also very popular in Australia.

Conservator’s Corner: Knight in shining armour

Published by Erika Taylor 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Photography by Kate Chidlow @ Powerhouse Museum, all rights reserved

We have had a Finnish furniture conservation student, Sanna Makarainen, with us in the Conservation Department undertaking a 3 month internship with Bronwen Griffin, Mixed Media Conservator. Sanna recently worked on a mounted knight for the Tinytorium exhibition.

Photography by Kate Chidlow @ Powerhouse Museum, all rights reserved

Firsly, she brush-vacuumed the object thoroughly all over. Using the brush, Sanna removed all the surface dirt from the metal, leather and fabric construction materials. A small plastic tube was attached to the nozzle of the vacuum cleaner to reduce the suction flow. Tulle was attached to the end of the tube with a rubber band to ensure that if any fragments were accidently loosened, they could be easily caught in the gauze, rather than getting sucked into the vacuum cleaner.

Photography by Kate Chidlow @ Powerhouse Museum, all rights reserved

Photography by Kate Chidlow @ Powerhouse Museum, all rights reserved

The leather straps on the knight’s leg guards had deteriorated and separated and needed to be consolidated. Sanna removed the leg guards to give her better access to the straps. Some of the leather strapping was in poor condition and needed to be supported. Sanna used a heated spatula, Beva film and silk behind the leather to give it more strength. In two places, the leather strapping had to be re-adhered, so Sanna used Beva impregnated stablitex to sandwich the leather together.

Photography by Kate Chidlow @ Powerhouse Museum, all rights reserved.

There was quite a bit of red rot in the saddle leather. Sanna protected the fragile saddle with fabric to prevent further abrasion occurring when the knight is seated on the saddle and horse. Some loose fragments from the hooves were re-attached with Paraloid B72 adhesive.

Kate Chidlow
Conservator