In 2009 the Indianapolis Museum of Art acquired the Miller House and Garden, an important mid-century modern residence in Columbus, IN. The house and garden were designed collaboratively by architect Eero Saarinen, interior designer and architect Alexander Girard and landscape architect Dan Kiley, at a time when each was at the height of their creative output. The house features flowing open spaces filled with light, achieved through a system of skylights, and expansive windows that integrate the surrounding landscape with the interior of the house. J. Irwin Miller, a successful industrialist, his wife Xenia, and their five children occupied the house from the time it was completed in 1957 until Mrs. Miller’s death in 2008. During this 50 year period the Millers acquired many significant works of art, including Monet’s Waterlilies, pieces by Picasso, Matisse, Bonnard, Chagall and others, but remained true to the modernist visions of Saarinen, Kiley and Girard in maintaining the house. This paper will present an overview of Girard’s use of textiles in the house, our understanding of the evolution of these textiles over time, aspects of preparing the house for public access, decision making around use and interpretation, and will examine inherent characteristics of the house and their impact on preservation. Limited resources and the short time line between acquisition of the house and its opening to the public in the spring of 2011 have necessitated a phased approach to conservation and the implementation of preventive practices. These factors will also be discussed while sharing the story of our care of the house to date, and plans for expanding this care into the future.
The use of slipcovers has been documented in the United States as early as 1647 and even the young George Washington, before becoming the first American president, ordered ‘loose covers’ for furniture in his newly inherited home at Mount Vernon. The worldwide appeal of slipcovers has always been one of comfort, style and function. Used in a variety of ways, slipcovers could be camouflage for worn and stained upholstery fabric. Or they could be used to protect very ornate and luxurious textiles, the outer cover removed only for important visitors. Because upholstered furniture pieces were often the dominant decorative components in a room, slipcovers also provided a relatively quick and affordable change in taste or an alternative to a more expensive fixed upholstery treatment. This fact is still true today and is the reason that slipcovers are more popular than ever.
This paper will present the historical use of slipcovers, appropriate fabrics and the many considerations for their use. Also discussed will be a specific treatment of an easy chair c. 1815, owned by the Historic Annapolis Foundation, Annapolis, Maryland. This chair still retains its original upholstery materials after almost two hundred years, and physical evidence indicates that it had been intended only to be slipcovered. The existing layers answered questions posed by furniture historians and offered challenges for its stabilization and treatment.
A suite of Baroque revival style seating furniture was treated in preparation for restoration of the second floor living hall at Biltmore, George Washington Vanderbilt’s house and estate in Asheville, North Carolina.
Biltmore was conceived and built by George Washington Vanderbilt, who employed architect Richard Morris Hunt and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. Boasting approximately four acres of floor space, the 250 room house was first opened to family and friends for Christmas of 1895. George’s only daughter Cornelia and her husband, John Cecil, opened Biltmore House to the public in 1930. Today the property encompasses eight thousand acres of forested terrain in the mountains of western North Carolina and attracts over one million visitors each year.
Because the house is so sizeable, many unusually large suites of furniture were purchased or produced to furnish it. One such is a suite of Italian Baroque revival style upholstered furniture, composed of 12 armchairs and two settees. The pieces are heavily carved in the manner of Italian sculptor Andrea Brustolon, and likely date to the nineteenth century. In the 1970s, eight of the chairs and one settee from this suite were reupholstered using modern materials and placed in the newly-finished Music Room. The remaining four chairs and settee remained in storage, upholstered in gauffraged wool plush.
At the beginning of this project, there were many questions: Was the large suite purchased new for Biltmore? Where in the house was it originally used? Is there any evidence of other upholstery treatments? The suite was also studied to determine if all of the pieces were made together; while clearly a matched set, variations in carving can be seen among the group.
Ultimately, six chairs and one settee were treated for reinstallation in the second floor living hall. This paper will present the research findings and the treatment of the furniture using minimally-intrusive upholstery techniques and the new reproduction gauffraged wool plush and trim.
A pair of documented 1826 Phyfe window benches with original under-upholstery materials belonging to the Brooklyn Museum of Art were treated for the American Wing’s exhibition “Duncan Phyfe: Master Cabinet Maker in New York” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, December 20, 2011 to May 6, 2012. The window benches retained their original webbings, baseclothes and squabs. Examination revealed different methods of corner cuts and variations in the attachments of the basecloths to the frames. These benches are of interest both in comparing the differences between them in upholstery techniques and for the treatment using a carbon fiber support system for the squabs.
The opportunity to examine multiple objects in a suite provokes discussions on the relationships between shop practices and the artisans doing the work. While this perspective has a history of scholarship in American furniture manufacture, it has yet to be seriously undertaken for historic upholstery and upholsterers. What are our interpretations when different textile materials are used or variations in techniques between objects are observed within the same campaign? Other pairs of upholstered objects with variations found in under-upholstery techniques and materials during examination will be discussed.
To retain the historically valuable comparative information found in this pair of window benches, our treatment of the benches provided an example of the use of carbon fiber supports to protect original material without intrusive techniques while enabling appropriate replacement showcovers to be installed. Matrixes of wovens embedded in resins have been used in conservation for a number of years. The development and availability of woven carbon fiber in epoxy offers advantages over fiber glass in polyester with its higher strength-to-weight ratios and ease of working properties. The issue in the treatment of the window benches was how to support the squabs on top of the original basecloth and webbing while protecting these fragile materials from the squab weight and allowing visibility and access to the original materials. The use of carbon fiber epoxy matrix sheet for this treatment will be described. Other uses of carbon fiber and epoxy for underupholstery support systems that we used in other treatments will be discussed.