Our restoration of the Miniature Sedan Chair Vitrine ca 18th century was seriously limited for many reasons.
The piece was a beloved sentimental family object.
Shown right, the vitrine in an image
taken by our client years before.
We are categorizing this as a vitrine because it is both a decorative object (objet d’art) and, when the shelves are in place, a display case.
The vitrine is large, at 17.25″ x 9″ x 8″. It is built of a wood frame, covered by a form of cardboard upon which the external and interior silk is applied. the external showcover is glued in place, while the interior silk is upholstered onto the cardboard material and set into the frame.
Two glass shelves are available for insert: A larger one that sits in the middle of the window, and a smaller on that sits lower in the cab. The handles appear to be made by the same wood as the frame, wrapped in silk; they sat in two handles on each side made by cardboard covered in silk.
We surmise the legs may have had some sort of ball or fixture at the bottom as a foot, because there are bores for such an item on all four legs.
We know that at some point in the objects lifespan there was a water event, due to the underside of the object, shown left.
Our materials list was short: a small amount of dupioni silk (from Sunsilks Inc., #DI545) and glue. We used two glues in this project: Old Brown Glue which is hydrolyzed collagen and urea with no additives, and Aleene’s Original Tacky Glue. Both are reversible.
Note 1: Images were taken on a gluing table, and the table appears dirty.
It is not dirty! Our tables are scrubbed between projects with cleanser and
cleaned with alcohol, until there is nothing that can come off onto anything
we place on top of it, but the plastic tabletop is stained.
Note 2: If our hands appear dirty in some images, it is a trick
of the camera. Our hands are always clean!
ASSESSMENT
Door Before, External
While much needed to be done to the piece, we were tasked with reparation of only two items because our client decided to take on some of the repairs himself:
- The door’s brass hinges ripped out when the door took a tumble; the hinges must be reattached.
- The two left-facing side windows, where the original glass has fallen out, the thin fiberboard window separator has broken in two, exposing the rabbeted pear wood frame, and compromising the silk wrap. The rear window frame has warped slightly.
Exterior of the door, shown right.
Above, panorama of the piece before treatment.
Items which are not to be repaired by us are:
- The door knob (image 1 below).
- The inside right-facing shelf holder, wrapped in silk, which was damaged in transit (image 2 below).
- The left-facing holder for the handle (image 3 and 4 below).
- The feet.
- Cleaning the piece.
While it was not in our scope of work to clean any part of the vitrine, I could not work with glues with the debris and dust in the interior of the cab.
We took a 2-inch soft acrylic artists brush (which we set aside for this kind of task) and gently brushed the interior to remove the debris, shown left. The debris was then carefully vacuumed to remove the piles of debris at the bottom corners.
DOOR
HINGES
The hinges were missing one brass screw and one was bent.
We found a replacement in our stash of hard-to-find-screws.
DOOR BORES
The brass door hinge bores on both the door and the cab needed to be conserved, as they were larger than necessary. Hard picks dipped in warm hide glue were inserted in the worn bore holes on both the door and cab, and tamped gently but firmly into place.
Above, hard picks in the door bores; below, hard picks in the cab wall.
They were allowed to cure over two days.
Once cured, they were clipped as close to the fabric as possible on both the door and cab, then carved down carefully so as not to nick the fabric, making sure all excess hard wood was level, shown below. Then the hardwood was tamped completely flat and ready for drilling to accept the hinges.
Above, hard picks in the door bores prepped for boring;
below, picks in the cab wall prepped for boring.
The bore holes were prepared for the brass screws, and the screws were installed. We had intended to use the historic screws but the wood, possibly basswood, needed a screw with a slightly larger girth. The new screws resolved the issues. The historic screws will be returned to our client along with other parts.
LEFT-FACING DOUBLE WINDOWS
The damage to the left-facing windows was extensive:
- The center silk mullion was broken in two pieces and would have to be repaired, shown above,
- The glass (both rear panes and front panes) had dropped out but not shattered.
We advised replacing the entire interior left-facing silk wall, but the client declined this treatment, which means the damaged silk around the glass had to be pieced into place.
We matched the interior silk to a cream dupioni from Sunsilks Inc., DI545.
We carefully trimmed the center silk interior mullion from the top and bottom of the interior cab, shown above left and right.
The gluing of the interior silk wall to the frame was glued in sections, each section taking about an 1 1/2 hours: treatment was performed over two days. Each side – top, rear side, front side, and bottom – had to be secured in separate glue-down applications, because otherwise there was no way to weight the interior wall properly:
- Rear window bottom;
- Rear window rear side;
- Rear window top;
- Front window bottom;
- Front window front side;
- Front window top.
Anvil used to weigh down the silk during gluing.
®Duco Cement was applied between the interior upholstered area and the frame. Before the actual true glue-down occurred, ®Duco Cement was applied to the interior area, pushed down by hand to spread the glue, and the first coat left to dry (1 hour).
A second coat was then applied and the interior silk wall was pressed into the glue. This insured that the second coat, which was weighted down using a 20 lb anvil, show right, did not bleed through the cardboard interior and onto the silk.
In this manner two applications were used for each area.
Note: Unfortunately this was a delicate operation; we had to ensure the glue did not get on the silk. We could not be distracted with process images.
DAMAGED CENTER SILK “MULLION” FRAME
Thankfully the center silk “mullion” had all the parts, and so could be theoretically glued back together.
The entire process of simply attaching and strengthening the original center “mullion” took seven steps over two days. Note: Again, I could not take process images and do the work!
First, the frayed silk was gently glued in place to lay flat and stop further fraying, using ®Aileen’s glue, taking several steps to avoid a thick patch in any one area, shown directly above.
The original center “mullion” also had to be strengthened, and in the process the broken parts were also made more secure, shown directly above. The strengthening was done using a file folder cut to fit the underside, shown above in several stages. The folder was the exact weight necessary but added negligible thickness to the structure, and had no dyes to run and complicate the treatment. The folder was cut, glued, clamped using flat pins, and left to cure for two hours before moving to the other side. Once complete, we allowed it to cure overnight.
Silk to match the original silk was cut to cover the damaged frayed (and glued) original silk, then wrapped and glued on the back of the center “mullion”, shown above.
We would have preferred to replace the silk on the interior left-facing side, and not doing so posed problems, such as how to finish off the edge of the center window frame’s silk replacement. The silk could not be finished with a hem as it would have raised a hemline on the top and bottom of the center frame. Instead, a toothpick with a touch of Aileen’s glue was used to just touch the edges to discourage fraying, shown left.
The restored center frame was ready to be inserted between the windows after the windows were resecured, next step.
WINDOWS INSERTED
The fabric wrapped casing in which the glass lay appears to have been previously glued, and may possibly be the original glue down with no previous repairs. Glue lifted over the fabric wrapping and sat in clumps on the center mullion.
The glass was cleaned of all old glues and debris through scraping, shown right, then using ®Windex; our towels came away blackened!
The excess original glue was scraped from the frame, shown above left.
Lifting fabric was trimmed if it visibly overlapped onto the interior frame, shown above center and right.
I apologize the images are not excellent!
Above, ®Duco Cement was applied to interior rear framed area and allowed to sit for an hour. A second coat was then applied, and the glass was slipped into place and weighted down into the ®Duco Cement using a 20 lb anvil. In this manner two applications were used for each window. First the rear window, above, then the front window, below, were treated.
REPAIRED CENTER SILK “MULLION” FRAME ATTACHED
Finally,the center repaired frame was reattached. Again, ®Duco Cement was applied by hand to the interior center frame area, and separately, the repaired “mullion”, and left for that first coat to dry (1 hour). We used a shim, shown second image, to level the frame for the silk to sit properly. Each layer of the shim was added with Aleene’s glue in between to secure.
The second coat was applied then weighted, and did not bleed through the cardboard underside and into the silk.
AFTER
The door detached, as we received it, above, with the old screws and hinges.
Below, it sets just proud of the cab proper, and traverses.
We recommended he had the jeweler who is making a knob for the door also
create a door stop, just so it is easier to open and close the door.
Above, the broken and torn interior left-facing window frame.
Below the windows set back into the frame, and the silk around them either
adhesed to the frame again with the new center piece installed.
dkatiepowell @ aol.com / mitchellrpowell @ aol.com
(So sorry, but we got too much spam — please copy and remove the spaces!)
503.970.2509 / 541.531.2383
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This is zing work. Kate. I’m surprised you even knew where to start.
Thanks! It was a difficult repair, and there was more head-scratching than normal, and more conferences with Mitchell when I ran an idea by him. I wished he had let us do. the whole project!