The Finer Points of Cleaning New Donations

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • July 18, 2016

On July 12th, I introduced the Mitchell House intern to the finer points of cleaning artifacts – in-depth curatorial cleaning. Nikki Lohr (a Vassar College senior this year, this summer’s intern, comes to us via the MMA-Vassar College Fellowship funded by a Vassar alum. The artifacts were recently donated to us from Ginger Andrews out of her family’s home on York Street which has been in the family since it was built about 1830. We were given several child-related items which had been living in the attic for a very long time and due to being so close to the roof were quite dusty and dirty from things sifting down through roof shingles and sheathing boards from wind and even re-roofing projects. She is wearing the delightful particle mask to protect her from any mold and dust. Since we do not have an indoor conservation workplace, we have to rely on a nice day outdoors to get the job done and the 12th was a perfect day – a gentle day and no humidity! We also worked on photographing the items and labeling them as we get them ready to put into our collections database.


In this image, Nikki is working on a child’s potty-chair. It is unfortunately missing its pot, but it is a wonderful mid-nineteenth century chair with hand-painted details. This chair along with a child’s rocking chair, a child’s doll cart, and an image of the astronomer Loomis will now all be on display at the Mitchell House so come see what’s new!


JNLF

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