What’s in our Drawers? Transforming a hidden collection

As many visitors to the Pitt Rivers Museum have discovered, you will certainly not be short of things to see. But did you know that some 270 drawers in the Court and Lower Gallery are currently being reimagined? In this transformational project, generously supported by The Clothworkers’ Foundation, a largely hidden collection will be made accessible to visitors and open up another exciting dimension to the rich ethnographic collections cared for by the Museum.

Many drawers are overcrowded, resulting in poor visibility of the collection and damage to the objects

At present, these drawers have been used as ‘overspill’ to house objects from the collection and have been added to over the years. With a collection as vast as the Pitt Rivers, it is easy to imagine how crowded these drawers have become. Not only has this resulted in some damage to the objects, it has also limited the accessibility of these objects to visitors.

These display drawers are contemporaneous to the Museum and, like the cabinets, form part of the well-known fabric of the museum often containing objects of the same ‘type’. Younger visitors enjoy pulling open the drawers and seeing what’s hidden inside, but the very action of opening the drawers currently risks further damage to the contents. Here lies the challenge: how do you go about updating these displays whilst working with historic display units? The answer comes in the form of a laser cutter and a lot of Plastazote foam!

Curating the Drawers

The first step in their transformation involves retrieving the drawer and selecting a group of objects to keep on display in the drawer, those that do not make the cut are then packed for storage. Like the larger display cabinets in the Museum the drawers contain a wide variety of objects that span the globe and present a unique curatorial challenge. Most of the drawers are far too full and so the project of redisplay gives us the opportunity to rationalise what we display in any one drawer. This can be difficult when some of the topics are as complex as ‘divination and religious objects from Africa’. Often these objects have complicated histories. Sometimes these are explained on old handwritten metal rimmed labels and so where possible we try to make these labels visible. The hand-written labels are not without their problems, often they contain old fashioned or even offensive terminology. Luckily objects in the Pitt Rivers Museum have often been donated in multiples of the same thing, by different donors. Aesthetically it is nice to group objects in odd numbers and sometimes it can be easy to discount objects on the fact that they may be in a bad condition and there is another example of the same thing which can be used. Again selecting objects which are from the same geographic area is a good rationale as is selecting similar objects from different regions to demonstrate the ingenuity of people from all over the world to make objects for the same function from the resources they have available to them. We have allocated a postcard sized space to accommodate a short explanatory label for each drawer, this also provides a challenge to write a short text interesting enough to aid the visitor in understanding what can be seen but brief enough to fit on a postcard and cover the diverse range of geographical areas and different cultures represented by the multiple objects displayed in a single drawer. Each week we look forward to discovering the contents of a drawer and are excited to see what lies in wait for us. 

Conserving the Drawers Contents

Rebeccas re-humidifying a plant fibre sample

The project has also allowed for remedial intervention to be carried out on some objects that have deteriorated or been damaged whilst stored in the drawers. Conservation treatment has ranged from re-bonding broken clay figurines, re-humidifying pineapple fibre textile samples, and carrying out tear repairs on a folding paper scene. The sheer variety of conservation challenges has been a wonderful opportunity to get to know objects that have remained largely unseen for a number of years. Not only does this ensure that objects are stabilised, it also means that they can be discovered anew by both staff and visitors.

The plant fibre sample before (above) and after (below) conservation treatment

Redisplaying the Drawers

Another exciting aspect of this project has allowed for the development of a technique which allows custom-made Plastazote trays to be created. The new object layouts are photographed, and outlines produced in Adobe Illustrator, before being programmed into the museum’s laser cutter. 

Preparing the Plastazote foam for laser cutting

The result? A foam tray that can be neatly slotted into the drawer. With a cushioning barrier now surrounding each object, a much safer and more attractive display has been achieved.

To date, 56 drawers have been totally transformed. And a huge 2061 individual objects have been processed! So, once we are able to return to the museum why not have a look in our drawers? You never know what you might discover . . . 

The transformed drawer layouts

Interested in following this project? The conservation department post regular updates about the ‘What’s in our Drawers?’ project and many other intriguing finds through their Instagram account. Just search for @pittriversmuseumconservation

Rebecca Plumbe (conservation intern) and Faye Belsey (Deputy Head of Collections)

A lesson in making the colour of the night sky and deepest ocean

The indigo mixture and below indigo in the pounder 

Last week three of us from the Pitt Rivers Museum, Julia Nicholson, Head of Collections, Jeremy Uden, Head of Conservation and myself were lucky enough to attend a two day workshop on indigo hosted by the conservation department of the Bodleian Library and led by indigo expert Jenny Balfour-Paul. Jenny has studied this mysterious colour, the colour so imbedded in our everyday lives as indicated by the title of her book “Indigo: from Egyptian Mummies to Blue Jeans” for over 20 years. This rich, deep colour, derived from the indigo plant, we learnt, is a chemical marvel. We made a chemical dye vat (with a kit from Maiwa) using natural indigo adding chemicals thiourea dioxide and lye to act as alkaline and as a reducing agent. Ideally, we would have made a fermentation vat using all natural materials whereby bacteria would break down the indigo naturally but this is a long process which could take several days or weeks and we only had a short time. 

We left the vat overnight and returned the next day to see what it had done. Amazingly the vat is clear/yellowish, not blue as you would expect. The smell was pungent. As the material is dipped into the vat it comes out green and turns blue when it hits the air through oxidization. It was amazing seeing the transformation before our very eyes. We dipped paper into the vat, removing the scum from the surface to make dye gods, a Japanese tradition to bring good luck to the success of the vat.

We also played with indigo as a pigment, braking the raw indigo down with a pestle and mortar and adding honey and gum arabic to make paint. We experimented with burnishing and used gold to paint over the indigo. This was a technique used in ancient manuscripts from Asia, the Middle East and Europe which we had seen in the Bodleian collections on the 


first day of the workshop. We have a number of indigo 
dyed textiles in the collections of the PRM including 
beautifully shiny indigo textiles from Southwest China. 

All hands in the indigo vat, below, Japanese dye god

Jenny Balfour-Paul has been kind enough to donate her collection of Textiles from the Arab world to the Museum. Many of the textiles use the rich tradition of indigo dying. I look forward to cataloguing Jenny's collection and researching it further in the coming months.

Many thanks to the conservation department of the Bodleian Library for hosting the event and for letting us use their photographs from the workshop in this blog. 

Faye Belsey

Assistant Curator

Temporary Exhibition: Preserving What is Valued - A World of Repairs - Part 2

One of two ceramics on loan from private collectors
demonstrating repairs made using the kintsugi technique
with lacquer and gold © Pitt Rivers Museum

Back in May we posted a blog about preparations for a temporary exhibition curated by the Conservation Department demonstrating original repairs made to objects when they were still in use. This is an update on the earlier blog now that the exhibition has just been installed into the display case on the Lower Gallery.

Despite the last minute addition of an excellent gourd, discovered by Jem and Faye while working to improve storage of the reserve collections, we managed to have everything ready for mount making on Monday 1st June as planned. We also borrowed from private collectors two ceramics demonstrating the kintsugi repair technique, the starting point for our exhibition plans.

Most labels were designed to include a detailed image of the repaired area on each object to help focus the visitor's attention on the part they should be looking at. We were keen however, to not put too much information on each label but leave it for visitors to think about  what significance the repair might have, after reading the introductory panel text.

Mock-up of the display once mounts were complete
© Pitt Rivers Museum

Display Technicians Chris Wilkinson and Alan Cooke had produced a scale mock-up of the final display case and were ready to go immediately. We were surprised to find that it took them about a week to complete the mock-up, which I think was also a relief to them given the complexities of working on the re-display of the Cook Voyages Collections, from which they were taking a therapeutic break.

At this stage the previous exhibition in the case was deinstalled, allowing Chris and Alan to prepare the case by filling and sanding holes and re-painting. It is important to do this a few weeks before the objects are installed to allow the paint to dry properly and any fumes from the paint to dissipate as they could cause adverse chemical reactions with the materials used on the objects. This is why you may see display case doors left open when you visit the Museum. At this stage they also painted and prepared the panels and plinth to be used in the display.

Chris and Alan mount the final copies
of labels and text © Pitt Rivers Museum

The next task before installation was to prepare the final labels and text. Katherine Clough, who has volunteered in the Conservation Department for a few years in many capacities, had accepted the challenge of producing a poster for the exhibition. The key element of the design uses several detailed images of the repairs fitted together to look like the world. We had added the strap-line 'A World of Repairs' to the exhibition title to be more explanatory on the poster. We used Katherine's 'world of repairs' motif in a semi-translucent way on the panel text to give it a bit of a lift and tie it into the poster.

On Thursday 25th June, a little ahead of schedule, Chris and Alan installed the objects in the case where they had already added the pre-painted panels earlier in the week. They started early to have the case closed and locked when the Museum opened at 10.00 a.m. On Friday 26th we adjusted the lighting in the case slightly to prevent too much light hitting the textiles, the materials in this display most prone to light damage.

Left: Installation of the objects, right: Alan and Chris take a moment to appreciate their labours © Pitt Rivers Museum

When we set out to produce the exhibition we were keen to write a gallery trail to enable visitors to see more repaired objects that are permanently on display. Having narrowed down the list, Andrew (with a little help from Madeleine) has produced a colour trail, which is available beside the display case. This again uses Katherine's 'world of repairs' motif on the cover. There are lots of trails available in the Museum but they are aimed at children and we wanted to see what interest there would be from adults. Hopefully the Gallery Assistants will be able to observe how many people use the trail over the coming months.

Cover of the Gallery Trail
linked to the exhibition

Finally, this is a good opportunity to mention some of the other tie-in events that will be coming up over the 6-month run of the exhibition. On the 18th and 19th September Tom van Deijnen will be running darning masterclasses in the Museum's annexe. Tom is best known for his visible mending program where a 'beautiful darn is worn as a badge of honour'. Follow this link to book a place on one of Tom's workshops.

In November traditional lacquerware artists Muneaki Shimode and Takahiko Sato from Kyoto will be artists in residence at the Museum for 10 days, demonstrating the kintsugi technique of repairing ceramics. The residency will include gallery demonstrations, an evening event and half-day practical workshops. There will be information on how to book a place on a workshop appearing on the the Museum website very soon - so keep watching this space.

Heather Richardson
Head of Conservation

Conservation of a 19th Century Tahitian 'Poncho'

As part of the final year of my MSc in Conservation for Museums and Archaeology at UCL, I am undertaking a five-month internship in the Conservation Department of the Pitt Rivers Museum. I have been lucky enough to spend some of my time here researching and conserving a fascinating object. Although it was "found unentered" (that is, found without an accession number or other identifying information) in the Museum store in 1984, more has since been discovered about the object's provenance. More recently, it came to the attention of Conservation staff, who blogged about it here - which is how it ended up as my internship project.

Based on analogies with objects at the Royal Economic Botany Collection at Kew Gardens (42977, 73328 and 73329) and at the British Museum (Oc1960,11.22, Oc1960,11.24 and Oc1960,11.25), the object can be identified as a traditional Tahitian poncho-like garment called a tiputa. It consists of a rectangular piece of barkcloth with a central opening to pass over the wearer's head. It is elaborately decorated with rosettes made of folded monocot leaf strips or stems and long fringes of extremely delicate plant leaf epidermis.

PRM 1984.3.1, front shown after conservation treatment © Pitt Rivers Museum

Given the lack of information about how the poncho came to be in the Pitt Rivers Museum collections, it is not implausible to suggest that - like the comparable objects from Kew and the British Museum - it may have been collected by Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, during a visit to Tahiti in 1869.

The Duke of Edinburgh is shown in this carte-de-visite photograph surrounded by Tahitian royal women in 1869 (image taken from the web page 'Ahoy - Mac's Web Log', where a now defunct commercial website 'oceania-ethnographica.com' is credited as the original source of the image). 

Prince Alfred's visit took place almost exactly a century after Captain Cook's first voyage, by which time there had already been extensive contact between Tahitians and Europeans. In fact, contemporary travellers' and missionaries' accounts describe islanders wearing a combination of barkcloth and Western woven textile clothing. It is interesting to note that by the mid-19th century, barkcloth production had probably ceased on Tahiti, so the material may have been imported from another Polynesian island. The highly decorated style of the poncho, moreover, does not fit in the traditional category of Tahitian high-status barkcloth, which was white and undecorated. All of this points to the poncho being the product of a period marked by dynamic, creative use of material culture to define colonial identities.

PRM 1984.3.1 as found in storage, before conservation treatment © Pitt Rivers Museum

From a conservation point of view, the poncho presented several problems, many of which resulted from inappropriate storage conditions in the past. The garment had been folded in half twice, and was then tightly packed into a wooden crate. This led to distortion and creases in the barkcloth material itself, as well as extensive damage and material loss to the fragile decorations. The decorative fringes which remained on the object were tangled, creased and damaged. The object was also rather dirty.

Bag of detached fragments. PRM 1984.3.1 © Pitt Rivers Museum

Thick covering of dirt on one of the rosettes. PRM 1984.3.1 © Pitt Rivers Museum

Tangled, creased and damaged edge fringes. PRM 1984.3.1 © Pitt Rivers Museum

Besides providing an opportunity to revisit some research into the poncho's cultural and historical significance, the main aim of the conservation treatment was to improve the structural stability of the poncho, while also improving its visual appearance. I used a Preservation Pencil to humidify the fringes one by one, straightened and untangled them, and repaired damaged areas with small patches of Japanese tissue paper adhered with starch paste. I cleaned the rosettes with a fine brush and vacuum tweezers and then misted them with a consolidant coating to strengthen the material. Finally, integral to the conservation treatment was devising a more appropriate storage solution, which would allow the object to be stored more comfortably and accessed more safely and conveniently in the future.

Humidifying and straightening the edge fringes, in progress. PRM 1984.3.1 © Pitt Rivers Museum

The scale of a conservation project like this cannot be underestimated. I spent 110 hours in total on the treatment and used around £78 worth of archival-grade materials (corrugated polypropylene board, Plastazote foam, cotton calico and polyester wadding) for the repacking. The volume of the new storage box is approximately 540 litres - nearly eight times the volume of the old crate. This clearly has implications for space availability inside the Museum store, an increasingly precious resource.

PRM 1984.3.1 in its new storage box, with the old crate pictured alongside © Pitt Rivers Museum

Finally, the treatment has provided me with an opportunity to collect already detached samples of the various plant materials present, with a view to carrying out more detailed identification using scanning electron microscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy at UCL's Institute of Archaeology. This analysis will be done over the next few months and I hope to be able to share the results in a follow-up blog post then.

Naomi Bergmans
Conservation Student

'Object Lives' visit

On the 13^th April Professor Laura Peers, Lecturer and Curator of the Americas at the Pitt Rivers Museum hosted a visit of a delegation of twelve academics, curators, researchers and students from various Museums and Universities across Canada as part of the ‘Object Lives’ project headed up by Beverly Lemire, Professor in the Department of History and Classics at the University of Alberta.

‘Object Lives and Global Histories in Northern North America’ is a collaborative research project with Edmonton and Montreal as the geographic hubs for its enquiry. The project will explore the histories of material culture within these regions, linked to wider global flows of influence that arise from trade, colonialism and migration. The object histories will be developed through the project’s multi-disciplinary partnership, generating essential new knowledge about people and object interactions. The stories of the selected objects will be presented on the 'Object Lives' website, detailing the biographies of goods that acted as surrogates of early globalization and cross-cultural exchange.

Laura Peers and delegates in the PRM research room © Pitt Rivers Museum

As part of this project, delegates are visiting object collections in Canada and more globally to develop object histories. During the groups visit to the Pitt Rivers Museum staff from collections and conservation facilitated the visit by retrieving and cataloguing those objects selected for research and being present during the visit to take notes and provide information on handling and the histories of how the objects came to be in the Pitt Rivers collections.

Wampum belt, 1952.5.08 © Pitt Rivers Museum 

The objects selected included garments, wampum belts, moccasins, horse gear and fishing equipment all from North America and the Canadian Great Lakes areas; Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan and some arctic regions. Indeed, in the case of some of the objects the group were building on knowledge from previous researchers when the objects were studied by the Great Lakes Research Alliance for theStudy of Aboriginal Arts and Cultures (GRASAC) research team in 2007. An example of such an object is the wampum belt (1952.5.08) retrieved for both visits. In 2007 the GRASAC team noted that the warp threads on this particular belt were unusually wide. An expert on wampum belts, Jonathan Lainey, an archivist at the Canadian Library and Archives, Ottawa, Ontario made the same observation.

Saddle and crupper, 1884.51.14 © Pitt Rivers Museum

The ‘Object Lives’ delegates visited over three days, spending time in the research room to study in detail the twenty-five objects selected for the visit. Several of the objects promoted animated discussion and interest among the group. I was particularly excited to hear the group’s thoughts on a padded saddle and crupper decorated with quillwork (1884.51.14). The crupper consists of a loop (the crupper itself) and an adjustable strap (crupper strap or back strap) that connects the crupper to back of a riding saddle or the other parts of a harness. The strap runs from the horse's dock, over the croup, to the saddle or to the back band (sometimes called the saddle) of a harness. The saddle had been buried away at the Museum stores and not seen by Museum staff since 2007 when it was last retrieved for cataloguing. The saddle came to the Museum as part of Pitt Rivers founding collection in 1884. It is not possible to know how Pitt Rivers acquired the saddle, most likely from his circle of antiquarian friends or network of dealers. The saddle has the label “NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN SADDLE. Ornamented with porcupine quills in the finest quality of embroidery now no longer employed. The form of stirrup has a long history. It was originally Arab having been derived from the east. It was untouched by the Moors into Spain and by the Spaniards into America, from there it was copied by the Americans of both North and South America.” The group were excited by the saddle, commenting that it was rare to see the saddle and crupper together. Of special interest was the exemplary quillwork showing a range of skill and technique; loom woven, braided edging, quill wrapped beads suggesting the work of more than one woman demonstrating their ability in quillwork. What was also interesting about the saddle was that it was made using only indigenous materials, nothing imported. Retrieving the saddle for the purpose of this visit gave us the opportunity to improve the enhance it's database entry and replace the existing old black and white photograph with a colour photograph. All the objects retrieved for this visit also went through our conservation department and had their condition assessed and improved.

Conservation intern Naomi using the dinoxcope to examine dog harness, 1954.9.26 © Pitt Rivers Museum

Garments in the research room ready for day 2 of visit © Pitt Rivers Museum 

Delegates examining deer skin coat, 1906.83.1 © Pitt Rivers Museum

Wool suit, 1896.21.1 © Pitt Rivers Museum

Other objects, which captured the imagination of the group, were the various garments, of which, a striking blue felted wool coat and leggings became a good talking point (1896.21.1). Donated to the Museum in 1896 by Mrs. L. A. Tollemache, the outfit has been attributed to NE Woodlands, Wendat. The coat, in contrast to the saddle is made from a combination of indigenous and imported materials made in blue blanket cloth, lined with wool tartan material and decorated with moose hair applique floral design it is easy to see the global influences in the tailored construction of the coat and floral design of the embroidery. The European tailoring was also seen in a painted deerskin coat viewed by the group on the same day (1906.83.1). The group were particularly interested to hear Cynthia Cooper's thoughts, Head of Collections and Research and Curator of Costume and Textiles at the McCord Museum, Montreal, Quebec. With the use of a Dinoxcope digital microscope facilitated by PRM conservation intern Naomi Bergmans, the group were able to examine the textiles in detail. Cynthia was able to talk about their construction with her expert knowledge and using the Internet find similar examples in other collections. The blue wool hat, leggings and coat can be seen on display in the Museum Court, case C.10.A – North American clothing. Interestingly the outfit is mounted on a carved wooden mannequin complete with fig leaf donated to Museum in 1953 intended to display a suit of Japanese Samurai armour! (1953.5.1 .23).

Cynthia with the rest of the group, object research in action! © Pitt Rivers Museum 

One group member, Judy Half, Aboriginal Liaison Officer at the Royal Alberta Museum, was interested to take a closer look at a pouch made from the hide of a white-tailed deer and decorated with quillwork, brass thimbles, jingles and dewclaws (1954.9.22). Judy is making a dewclaw bag herself and so wanted to see how the historic one was made. Judy spoke of the ritual life of the bag, used in ceremonial dances by men. The fragility of the claws and jingles suggest that the bag was worn for slow moving dances, where there are pauses to hear and appreciate the gentle tinkle of jingles. The variety in the size and shape of the thimbles and the use of metal jingles again demonstrate the flow of global influences in Canada and Northern USA at the time that these objects were made and collected.

Dewclaw bag, 1954.9.22 © Pitt Rivers Museum

It was a real pleasure to be part of the ‘Object Lives’ visit and to be present during the lively and stimulating discussions around the interesting histories and stories of these objects. I look forward to following the progress of the project through the ‘Object Lives’ website.

Faye Belsey

Assistant Curator

Caring for the Collections

Work at the Museum stores continued throughout the cold and gloomy winter months. Collections and conservation staff are systematically improving the storage of vulnerable collections and those things considered difficult to move and access in their current storage. We replace old boxes with new conservation grade materials. To this end we have completed the arrows project, re-storing and locating all arrows in storage, adzes and axes have been moved to larger shelves and we are now working on mats and fibre clothing.

Mats retrieved from storage in the conservation lab for humidification
© Pitt Rivers Museum 

Tubing cut to size to roll mats onto © Pitt Rivers Museum

The Museum has a good collection of mats from all over the world, which are currently stored rolled on shelves on movable racking. When the racking is moved to access collections behind or in front of the mats the mats are at risk of falling off the shelving or being squashed. The solution to this is to store the mats rolled on tubing which can be easily removed from brackets on the shelves. We have been taking the mats back to the Museum so that Senior Conservator, Jeremy Uden can humidify the mats, check their condition and eventually roll them onto the tubing once the tubes have been cut to size.

Unwrapping a Malaysian mat; 1940.3.028 (above and below) 
© Pitt Rivers Museum

Sometimes at the store we come across objects wrapped in brown paper packaging, often the packaging that the object came to the Museum in the first instance in. Unwrapping the brown paper is exciting for us. Last week we unwrapped a fabulous mat and pillow from Malaysia. The mat is richly embroidered with silk and sequins and belonged to the Sultan Idris.

Detail of embroidery on Malay mat © Pitt Rivers Museum

Plant fibre fringed skirt in new box
© Pitt Rivers Museum

Whilst or technical team work on constructing the new storage unit for the mats we have been working through the fibre clothing including many grass skirts from Polynesia, Japanese fibre rain capes and African masquerade costume. The fibre clothing is made from grasses, palm leaves, bark and other plant material. This material gets very brittle over time and becomes delicate and fragile. These items of clothing were often worn and danced and used, they were not supposed to last forever by their very nature. Given the age of the some of the pieces and the distances they have travelled to be in the collections they are in remarkably good condition. The re-storage project will involve moving the clothing to larger custom made Corex boxes. We have already discovered an important fibre skirt from Captain Cook's voyages to the Pacific which had been previously un-located.

Plant fibre skirt from Tahiti, Forster 36, 1886.1.1179 © Pitt Rivers Museum

Custom made Corex boxes filled with plant fibre clothing 
© Pitt Rivers Museum

Conservation grade standard sized boxes for 
smaller garments © Pitt Rivers Museum 

Fibre clothing laid out on the table at store for cataloguing (above and below) 
© Pitt Rivers Museum

Custom Corex boxes on store shelves © Pitt Rivers Museum 

Faye Belsey & Jeremy Uden
Assistant Curator & Senior Conservator