MPF Conservation (known as MPFC from now on) is honored to work on spiritual objects. In this blog post, we cover the treatment of the antique kapporet from the Temple Beth Hatfiloh in Olympia, WA, shown above before treatment.
The short curtain (kapporet) is seen on top of the longer parokhet. Image from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parochet
“The Torah Ark valance (Heb. kapporet) is a short curtain hung on the Torah Ark, above the curtain (parokhet). This ceremonial object, which first appeared in eastern Europe at the end of the 17th century, evolved in connection with the identification of the Torah Ark in the synagogue with the Ark of the Covenant, and of the upper part with the kapporet on the Ark of the Covenant in the Tabernacle (Ex. 25:21). Accordingly, it was customary in eastern Europe to inscribe the verse “He made a cover of pure gold” (Ex. 37:6) on the upper part of the Ark. The identification then came to be applied to the short curtain hung over the upper part of the Ark to conceal the rod on which the main curtain (the parokhet) was mounted. Indeed, we find the verse “Place the cover (kapporet) upon the Ark of the Covenant” (Ex. 26:34) embroidered on early Torah Ark valances. As part of the synagogue furnishings, the valance was probably introduced under the influence of 17th-century interior decoration in Europe, where such valances were integral parts of curtains in general. Further influence of the cultural environment is evident in the scalloped lower edge of the valance.” (From https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/parokhet-and-kapporet)
Based on some parokhets the temple owns which have an embroidered tag on them, we believe this was likely made in New York City in the 1920’s.
Note: As you read the blog post, pay attention to captions under the images where applicable.
The shift in color in various images has to do with the flash or lighting;
we choose the best images for what we want to show you.
Also, RF means right-facing, and LF means left-facing, as you are standing in front the the object.
It was told to us that this kapporet went through a fire in the 1940s. It was initially cleaned by a company that works with fire damage, and meaning no disrespect to the company that did this work, having items such as this and other sacred textiles cleaned by actual conservators might have been better in the long run. We are placing this comment in our blog post so that anyone reading it can reflect on this if they are ever in a position to weigh in on what to do in cases such as smoke and heat damage.
We found evidence of what appears to be smoke embedded under the trims, shown right, probably held in place by the stitching of the passementerie.
ASSESSMENT, EXCAVATION, AND CLEANING
ASSESSMENT
There was a lot of obvious damage on this kapporet: loose stitches, fraying trims, missing chain fringe, lost sequins and brass discs. The RF Star of David (called star from now on for simplicity), shown left, and the LF star shown below with details, shared many of these issues.
When we first assessed the kapporet, we did not see the hidden damage which happened in the heat of the fire. The heat itself damaged fibers in such a way that as we began repairing various areas, more fibers would break and occasionally sequins would shatter at a simple touch, shown below, causing more repairs to be made (more on sequins at the bottom of the blog post).
When assessing an item, part of the assessment is to determine the exact materials that must be purchased. MPFC has never had such difficulty in finding materials for a project! Kate is very good at searches on the internet, and finally found that Etsy was the best bet, as many small vendors had strange bits and bobs for resale in bags of 20-40 pieces versus a kilo!
The brass discs, shown left and below, plagued her. She bought several bags of unsuccessful discs that the sellers said were closer to the proper size and in fact they were much larger, shown below. Keeping them was less expensive than sending them back.
(Read on in REPARATION, below, because on a hunch at the
eleventh hour, Kate found what she needed!)
The shattering of the “intact” historic sequins, shown left and described above, made Kate look closely at other sequins. Several were cracked. The grey-dark beige sequins shown left were very brittle; the pink color is from the sequin sitting on the wine-colored velvet through decades, including the heat event of a fire.
Initially Kate looked for flat sequin-like discs, only to realize the grey discs she was looking for were melted sequins which likely had the cupped octagonal shape we think of the as a modern sequin.
Initially we thought the historic sequins might have been metal, but MPFC believes they are likely acetate, made in the 1930s, which can be brittle (see “Note about Sequins” at the bottom of this blog post).
This brings us to the center vase, shown above. MPFC does not know the significance of the vase in the Jewish tradition.
The vase has a central flower, stems coming off on both sides, and two scroll-like motifs, image #2 and #6 above. All show many losses and issues: loose stitches, fraying trims, missing springs, lost “chains”, and missing sequins and/or brass discs which stacked and then were topped with a small metal spring. Several sequins were bent from the heat, shown in image #4 above. A large dirty “ruby” gemstone was placed in the center of the vase.
In this area we could easily see the items were applied with string, not thread, shown right.
EXCAVATION
The first of the two passementerie or gimp trims is a 1-inch wide bronze and saffron yellow colored trim, shown above and left, with woven 1/16-inch brass running the length and woven metal running cross the width.
The larger trim is laid over the smaller trim with missing chain fringe, discussed below.
The 1-inch thick trim was coming loose and lifted, so needed restitching to the velvet base of the kapporet. Details above show a sampling of the repairs needed, both to the scalloped edge of the larger trim, and to the loops attached to it.
The wide passementerie was excavated from the wine velvet base of the kapporet, shown above, which is when MPFC first was able to see the structure of the beautiful saffron-colored underside. We assume that historically the trim presented as brighter yellow color before age and a fire happened to it!
Once the wide trim was removed, a “stain” from the 1/16-inch wide brass that was woven throughout the gimp trim was exposed underneath, shown right.
The second passementerie is a darker metallic trim approximately 3/8″ wide, shown above and left, after the larger saffron gimp trim was excavated.
In the first image above, you an see two stitches made with a string-like “thread.” We do not know if this was a little repair work or original to the piece.
The gimp was bent over at the top of the scallop shapes, shown in the second image above, and had many lifting stitches, shown in the third image above.
Kate decided initially not to remove the smaller trim with the attached chain fringe, as the trim itself was in good condition, but did plan on repairing the missing chain by moving the chain fringe to balance the open areas, discussed below in REPARATION, below.
CLEANING
Cleaning of the various parts was performed along with repairs, an example being the loops shown above. Embedded grime which accumulated on the textile surface and also on the surface of the vase (not shown above) was cleaned using cotton swabs and 70% alcohol solution, which evaporates quickly. “Gemstones” were cleaned in the same manner. MPFC will also carefully vacuum the velvet at the end.
REPARATION: TEXTILE AND PASSEMENTERIE (TRIM)
We divided the reparation into two distinctions, textile and passementerie. The latter includes the many beads and discs which had to be re-applied.
We are showing a sampling of the reparation work, and apologize for the lack of good photos of the textile repair work but many of those images were out of focus.
TEXTILE
Most of the textile reparation was to the back and the loops for the rings.
Reparation was performed with a #10 quilting needle, and Gutermann 100% silk thread in color #2776. I wanted cott0n thread but could only get the right color in silk thread.
In image #1 below: This odd stitching was an early repair, and as it did not appear on the front of the kapporet, we left as is, and assume there was a rip which was stitched.
The back had areas with holes, and larger rips, shown in images #2-#3, below.
Note: The frayed top edge, shown right during the stitching of the
passementerie, is going to be stitched
during the application of the kapporet to the stretcher fabric for mounting, next blog
post (which will be live when it is
completed and posted), called:
“Temple Beth Hatfiloh Antique
Kapporet, Frame Ready”.
☾
PASSEMENTERIE
LARGE 1″ PASSEMENTERIE
We began repairs with the 1″ bronze-saffron passementerie. A closer look showed more damage than initially thought, and Kate also found the first hurdle to repairing the trims.
Kate bought the brass needed to replace missing and broken brass which was woven into the trim, shown left and center below.
But when she looked to slip a bit of this into an area with missing brass, she found that the woven trim was locked into place. We could not get the brass to penetrate the area on top of the trim. At the time we did not think about the heat and smoke damage, but now in hindsight this may be why it was impossible to slip anything into the woven areas, because the woven gimp is thread and metals, and the metals may have melted slightly — a theory.
Initially Kate was going to repair tears and rips along the exterior scalloped edge, however, she also realized that part of the work not discussed but understood as a conservator, is to prevent obvious situations which could lead to more damage. To this end, we needed to secure the lifting woven brass.
K
ate laid out the gimp trim, inspected it again thoroughly, and marked the damaged outer edge areas with yellow paper pinned to the trim, shown right.
The goal throughout the rest of this treatment was to repair torn areas, and to stabilize areas on the verge of coming undone.
Kate began on the RF side, shown left and in details above. Reparation was performed with:
- #10 quilting needle,
- Gutermann 100% cotton thread in color #3060 (for the dark brown),
- Occasionally Gutermann 100% cotton thread in color #2410 (when a saffron yellow was needed).
- Handy tool #1 was a #11 Boye crochet hook for lifting pieces of the trim, shown right;
- Handy tool #2 were the 3/4″ clips shown below left, which secured the trim when it needed securing,
- Handy tool #3 was her needle-minder (the giraffe) and she doesn’t know how she lived without one before,
- and of course silk pins, a seam ripper and teeny Gutenberg scissors.
In the beginning Kate was stitching without reinforcement, shown in the set of images of repairs, above.
Very soon, however, she found it valuable
to use a bit of fabric on the backside for stability when stitching, shown on the corner above right in image #2.
It was also important to protect the passementerie during treatment.
To that end she began rolling the areas
not being repaired, as shown right, and using silk pins to secure them.
A second deep rip across the side was when the perfection of the protocol became easier, shown above. Kate used the colored thread to mask the stitches in many areas as if they were the metallic weave, especially when seen from a foot away, and went in both directions to stabilize the torn area.
After that, two protocol were also applied.
The first was the fabric on the back of 90% of the repairs, shown above. Having that extra bit of fabric made stitching so much easier, because otherwise Kate was sometimes stitching into a space where there was nothing to stitch into. The biscuit colored fabric is not apparent unless you get very close on one or two of the somewhat open holes.
The second is that Kate wanted to stabilize the woven brass so it could not be caught on or otherwise get bent and fall off the passementerie in future, and so nearly all the brass had 1-3 cross stitches as shown left and in many other images.
We are ending this reparation with an example of the worst damaged
area on the 1″ trim, shown above and in details below, in two parts.
Above, Kate’s setup during this day long reparation.
Note: As you read on, pay attention to captions under the images.
One difficulty was straightening out the historic metallic stitching. It was brittle, and also broken in parts, so had to be done carefully with the tiny crochet hook.
Stabilization of the brass weaving with 1-3 stitches from the back is shown in the last image above.
Below, Kate switched to brown thread and began weaving the metallic woven parts to secure each one, sometimes individually.
☾
SMALL 3/8″ PASSEMENTERIE
MPFC originally thought the chain fringe and the 3/8″ trim were two separate items overlaid on the bottom edge of the kapporet, shown in a few images from the ASSESSMENT images, above, but soon discovered the small 3/8″ trim had the chain fringe attached as part of the historic trim.
We wanted to balance the chain fringe so that the larger gaping areas missing fringe on the right-facing end and in the middle could be infilled by removing a few pieces of chain fringe and placing them strategically.
We were successful at the right-facing end, lifting some of the chain that had been pulled out up and under the 3/8″ trim, shown above, and tying or knotting them under the loose 3/8″ trim.
However, after about five-inches from the RF side, the chain became hard to impossible to move. Kate gently tried many lines and found they were stuck, and was afraid she would do more damage by forcing the chains, such as breaking them off. “Do no harm” became her motto. We understood that the metallic 3/8″ trim had literally melted enough from the heat of the fire that it was solidified in place.
After that revelation, she instead worked to secure the tops of the scallop where it was bent over as much as possible, shown in details above. Here too it was sometimes hard to make it lay flat again, shown in image #4, because it had permanently bent in that position and flared out.
Kate stitched the entire 3/8″ trim down, shown right and below, repairing small areas as she stitched to insure they did not continue to degrade.
☾
DO-DA INFILL
“Do-da” is what Kate’s been calling the many different types of heat-ravaged decorative items that create the two stars on either end and the central vase; it is a highly technical term. These include melted sequins, brass discs, hollowed out gold tubes of several types, plus the black and gold glittery trim.
On that note, Kate looked for a long time for a sort of flat grey 8mm-10mm disc to infill on the stars and the vase. Finally it occurred to her that that off-grey “disc” was actually a melted 8mm sequin. Historically it was probably a different color than the replacement, but Kate matched a satin finished charcoal grey 8mm cupped sequin to the piece.
She repaired the RF Star of David first, shown above:
- stitching the loose central gemstone into place, image #4;
- stitching the historic brass discs into place, image #2; and
- repairing the black and gold trim which created the basic shape, image #3, using specialty threads.
Left, the RF star of David after this historic items were repaired and re-applied.
Kate repaired the LF Star of David second, shown above, with notes on each image:
- Stitching one flat sequin and hollow gold-colored tube into place, images #8-9;
- stitching the historic brass discs into place; and
- repairing the black and gold trim which created the basic shape using specialty threads..
Right, the LF Star of David after this historic items were repaired and re-applied, showing the areas where we needed to infill missing brass discs.
This brings us to the central vase, which Kate repaired upside down. The first thing she did was try to clean the stiff fabric of the vase, shown right, which was moderately successful.
She stitched the lifting black and gold trim into place, shown above image #1.
She moved the various flattened historic sequins and consolidated them into a pleasing pattern, then stole a couple from the hanging vines to balance the vase decorations, resulting in image #5 above, showing the balanced vase, and image #6, showing the vines with missing flattened sequins.
At this time the large brass discs were not pleasing to her, shown right compared to a historic brass disc, and the new flattened gold sequins (shown below) were not pleasing either.
Reparation was performed with
- a #9 embroidery needle and
- Gutermann 100% cotton thread in color #1712 to match or blend in with the metallic woven parts.
Below you can see the steps in stitching – this was performed all the way around, six steps for each stitch!
☾
Kate was technically completed, as she was waiting on a charcoal sequin to place on the vase. And, she could not bring herself to add those large brass discs, nor the proper sized substitute flat gold sequins she considered, to the kapporet. It just wasn’t right.
Her intuition told her to try a search one more time, and the perfect size came up from the same company in Turkey that had NOT had that size before. HURRAY! Ordered, came in at the same time as the charcoal 8mm sequins, and the final touches were added, below.
Note: Above right, after the items were delivered,
showing the charcoal sequin on the flat gold sequins, next to
the charcoal sequin on top of the properly sized brass disc.
LF Star of David, above. Note the almost perfect size of the new brass discs!
RF Star of David, above.
The center vase had the following performed:
- The charcoal satin sequin was placed over the new brass disc; a bit of broken chain acted as the stem, image #1;
- The black and gold trim was repaired and secured, image #2;
- The historic gold hollow trim was either reattached or resecured for safekeeping as much of the threads had disintegrated, images #4-#5;
- The new brass discs were added, and the satin finish charcoal 8mm sequin was added to the ends.
Kate vacuumed the velvet of the kapporet carefully, above. When vacuuming over the decorative areas, a clean screen was used to ensure the vacuum did not touch the decorative items.
This phase of the project was completed. The next phase was to place the kapporet onto a stretched frame (see “What is Frame-Ready“), so it would be ready for the Temple’s framing man to complete the project.
COMPLETION OF TREATMENT
Above, the entire kapporet after treatment.
Above, details of the kapporet after treatment.
Above, before and after images of the stars and the vase.
A Note about Sequins: They were initially made of metal in the 1920’s,
the name coming from sikka meaning coin. They became popular after King Tut’s
tomb unearthed garments covered in discs of pure gold. The next successful
generation in the 1930s were acetate, which were fragile. Herbert Leiberman described them as “Brilliant, but brittle… Acetate will crack like glass.”
After that, they were made of mylar surrounding a plastic sequin, and finally,
vinyl plastic, almost as sparkly. It will eventually curl and lose it’s shape.
For more information on sequins, look to two publications: From the Smithsonian Magazine: A History of Sequins from King Tut to the King of Pop, 2012,
and just for fun, “The Story of Sequins.”
☾
dkatiepowell @ aol.com / mitchellrpowell @ aol.com
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503.970.2509 / 541.531.2383
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