Object
The object is an African statuette from the Anthropology collection at Durham University. The object is a carved, seated female figure wearing a loin cloth. There is carved jewellery around her neck and three strings of beads around her waist. The strings of beads consist of one with yellow beads, and two with red, blue, white and yellow beads. There are signs of carved decoration on the face, neck, chair and back, and it appears that the wood has been stained a deep brown colour. The statuette is possibly a Minsereh figure made from Antiaris wood, found in West Africa.
Condition
- There are signs of durt on the surface of the object, both ethnographic and museum dirt appears to be present
- The back legs of the chair have been broken off at some point and one is missing.
- There is evidence of old adhesive on broken edges of the chair legs, and there is an iron nail through one of the broken ends of the chair legs
- There is an old repair to the neck with signs of discoloured wax
- There is an old repair to front right leg as several iron nails are visible and there is evidence of wax
- The right arm is missing from the shoulder
- There appears to be an area of paint on the proper right breast
- There appears to be evidence of past insect damage on the left ear and the hair
- There is a hexagonal hole from the base of the chair to the top of the head
Conservation
The statuette was initially dry cleaned using a brush to remove the loose dirt from the surface, and was then cleaned using groomstick in order to remove the more ingrained dirt from the surface. Neither of these treatments would remove the ethnographic dirt and so were deemed appropriate.
The beads around the waist were surface cleaned using an appropriate solven and cotton wool swabs. The beads were rested on a piece of plastazoate in order to prevent moisture from the solvent soaking into the wood and causing damage. Additionally, the swabs were only slightly dampened with solvent in order to avoid the wood becoming damp.
The excess wax, which had turned pale and opaque was proving to be visually intrusive, so was removed carefuly using a scalpel. Although the wax could have been removed using a solvent, the desire was to minimise solvent use on the object and so mechanical cleaning was thought to be sufficient.
The old adhesive where the broken leg had been attached was paired down to allow a proper fit and alignment of the leg so it could be re-attached. As the leg had been adhered in the incorrect position initially, and then had suffered damage when it became detached a second time the leg would not realign correctly. All previous adhesive needed to be removed in order for the fragments of the chair leg to be re-adhered into their correct positions. This then allowed for the chair leg to be aligned correctly with the rest of the chair and adhered in place.
There was a small area of missing surface material on the chair leg, which wasboth visually intrusive and could cause a stability issue. This area was consolidated initially in order to prevent further loss of material and then was infilled using glass microbeads and an appropriate adhesive, as this would help to stabilise the loss.
The missing chair leg was carved using balsa wood as this was incredibly similar in weight and density to the original wood, but would be distinguishable from the original material on close inspection. The balsa wood would also react to the environment in the same was as the original material which would allow all joins to remain stable. The replacement leg, and the area which was infilled were both colour matched in order to help them blend with the original material and appear less visually intrusive.