Bits and Pieces

Completed Repair

This piece came into the studio with several condition problems.

The Chinese silk embroidery panel was distorted because of breaks in the support frame for the embroidery, and the stand itself was missing a carved bracket and several pieces of mother of pearl inlay.

My "impression" is that the silk in the frame is not the original occupant, but a period section of fabric trimmed to fit the original missing artwork.

The embroidery had been lined much like a canvas for a painting and the brown silk border was sewn around the spruce stretcher and then strung taut in a rather "shoe-lace" fashion across the back.

I started out by reinforcing the damaged stretcher support. Pulling back the lining and isolating the material with glassine, I glued the shattered spruce elements and reinforced the breaks with strips of new spruce.

A side note: the clamps are actually older style Intravenous tube clamps that I purchased at American Science and Surplus. The small hemostat clamps came from there as well. A great source for odd and unusual bits and pieces.

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The frame itself was missing one of the carved support brackets so I traced one of the originals and set about carving the replacement.

The original is on the right

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The mother of pearl inlay was an easier task. Again tracing the replacement from an original (in this case a flower) and then engraving the petal detail before resetting it in the groundwork.

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Detail of the embroidery

As usual there are more photos on Flickr

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Lid Repair

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Stand Repair

Before

Turned Profile

Carved

Completed

The Original

The Replacement

Additional Photos on Flickr