Victoria Hobbs (Conservation Officer) has been working hard to get the pieces ready for exhibition. A selection of the items have been mounted onto board and fabric. Victoria showed us the process she had gone through, cutting mount board to size which she then covered with a padding fabric and conservation standard fabric in cream. We had chosen this fabric back in September as we felt it was a good shade for the pieces to be mounted on. Victora stretched the fabric and padding on to the board and then secured it with thread, stretching pieces of thread horizontally and vertically along the back to keep the fabric taut.
She then pinned the pieces and started to sew using invisible stitches. She showed us how she had arranged the pleated skirt to keep it flat and the special curved needle she used to sew with.
It was really good to see all the pieces again, a lot of them are bigger than we had remembered and the details are beautiful. Some of the Illuminate group hadn't seen any of the pieces whilst other who were familiar with them were surprised by some of the details they had missed before. We are all feeling excited about how they will look on display. Some items have't changed too much. There is a fine balance with cleaning and altering the items, the conservators wanted to keep the original feel of the piece and there is some damage that cannot be repaired. Others look transformed, in particular the Manchu Warrior armour which has been polished so the studs gleam rather than look dull as they did before.
