Silk collection

At one level, life can be regarded as a collection of hugely complex reactions taking place between organic compounds in oddly shaped containers. Many of these organic compounds are polymers, including the cellulose of wood, natural fibers such as cotton and silk, the proteins and carbohydrates in our food, and the nucleic acids of our genes. 

The fulminate is precipitated in the form of greyish needles. When the reaction is complete, the reactor is allowed to stand for approximately 30 min while the contents are cooled. 1-2 1. of water are then poured in and the liquid is decanted from above the precipitated crystals. The precipitate is transferred to a cloth filter and washed with distilled water until completely free of acid. The product is then screened on a silk sieve (approximately 100 mesh/cm2) which retains the larger crystals. The smaller crystals are collected for direct use. The large ones are ground under water, passed through the same sieve and added to the previous batch. 125 parts of fulminate are obtainable from 100 parts of mercury, which corresponds to a yield of 88%. 

Sulphurous acid gas is absorhed by water and hence, in order to examine its properties in that state, it must he collected over moreury. It is colorless and transparent, having a peculiar irritating odor, and cannot be respired. It is neither combustible, nor a supporter of combustion. It possesses bleaching properties, owing to wliich it is used in the arts to whiten straw bonnets, com, silk, sponges, and other substances if a red rose be expesed to the flame of burning sulphur, it becomes completely white. 

Paper is reported to have been made in China as ea rly as A.D. 100, when cellulose fibers from mulberry bark were pounded into thin sheets. Finer paper was eventually produced by lifting a silk screen up through a suspension of cellulose fibers in water, so that entangled fibers collected on the screen. After drying, the fibers remained intertwined, forming a sheet of paper, as shown in Figure 18.1. 

Although much of the interest in biological nanostructures has focused on relatively complex functionality, cells and organisms themselves can be considered as a collection of self-assembled materials lipid bilayers, the extracellular matrix, tendon and connective tissue, skin, spider silk, cotton fiber, wood, and bone are all self-assembled biological materials, with an internal structure hierarchically ordered from the molecular to the macroscopic scale. 

Currently, the vast majority of textiles being collected by museums are made from natural fibers, and attention is focused on these products in this volume. Silk is discussed in Chapters 7-9, and cellulosics in Chapters 10 and 11. Techniques that may be useful for the characterization of textiles to be preserved are described in Chapters 13—15. 

Silk is an animal fiber valued for its texture, strength, and luster. First prepared in ancient China, silk fabric was expensive, luxurious, and soft its popularity led to the development of a trade route known as the Silk Road leading from Asia to Europe. Early American entrepreneurs such as Benjamin Franklin promoted the silk industry in the colonies. Silkworms spin cocoons that are collected, steamed, and unwound to obtain the silk fiber by a process known as reeling. A number of fibers are twisted together to form a thread of raw silk. Threads are combined, cleaned, stretched, dyed, and woven into fine fabrics. Silk fibers have great tensile strength and are sometimes used in cordage. 

By the mid nineteenth century, as the weakened condition of the collections of paper materials in major European and American libraries and archives began to attract increased concern, new strengthening methods were developed (3). The most significant of these was silking— the application of a silk gauze to both sides of a document. The process seems to have been adopted first at the National Archives of France,... 

In the Library of Congress collections one can find good and bad examples of the two systems, silking and cellulose acetate lamination. One can only conclude, therefore, that in addition to adequate treatment of the papers before lamination, the craftsman s manipulative techniques of application, (and, with silking, pressing and drying) are fundamental to truly archival protection. 

Silk concentration plays a major role in fiber diameter. No fibers were formed at less than 5% silk concentration for any electric field and spinning distances. Figures. 22 and 23 show the morphology of fibers obtained at the electric fields of 3 and 4 kV/cm, respectively, at silk/formic acid concentrations of 5, 8, 10, 12, 15, and 19.5% with a constant tip-to-collection plate distance of 7 cm. 

Problems of classification of 18th century painted-printed Chinese and Western silk textiles are discussed with emphasis on how nondestructive X-ray fluorescent (XRF) analyses of pigment-dye pastes and paints can be combined with visually observable physical characteristics, painterly techniques, and art historical research to separate Chinese silks from Western ones. This unique documentation process is the result of our joint, 2-year study and shows how textile connoisseurship can be reinforced with scientific data. Thirty painted-printed 18th century silks from the textile and costume collections of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York Musee Historique des Tissus in Lyon, France National Museum of American History Philadelphia Museum of Art Rhode Island Historical Society and The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum were examined and analyzed by XRF for this study. 

It is no surprise then that American and European collections now house large numbers of 18th century silks that, on the basis of their appearances, could be of either Chinese or Western origin. The results of this study are addressed to the question of the provenance, that is, the documented origin, of these silks. 

XRF analyses were performed on the pigments of 22 Chinese and 8 Western painted and printed silks from the silk and costume collections of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York Musee Histo-rique des Tissus in Lyon, France National Museum of American History Philadelphia Museum of Art Rhode Island Historical Society and The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum. 

Of the 64 fragments in the Brantley collection, 61 were found to be woven of silk, 1 was woven of silk and wool, 1 was woven of silk and cotton, and 1 was woven of cotton. Fifty of the samples contained metallic yams all were flat metal strips wound around silk yams in a spiral fashion except one which was woven flat without the core. These metallic yams were used both for ground fabric and for brocading. 

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