Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 26. (Budapest, 2008)

Róza BRENNER: Conservation of a Pair of 18th Century Leather Boots Shrunken and Deformed at High Temperature

6. The pair of boots in the humidification tent certain salts at given temperature produces always the same relative humidity in the immediate environment.

1 Thus, in a well sealed tent the saturated solution of the adequately selected salt can provide the required humidity. Apart from direct contact with water, the humidity content of the cabinet can be set at a durably steady value;

2 it does not depend on the temperature of the environment (except for extreme cases), does not need electricity and is relatively cheap. I softened the leather in a humidification tent with about 56% humidity produced by the saturated solution of calcium-nitrate. The required value was achieved in about a fortnight because originally there was far lower humidity (about 30%) in the workshop, and the badly parched boots sucked up the newer and newer water content in the tent, which I tried to make up for by providing and repeatedly re-wetting the saturated solution of sodium-chloride producing about 75% humidity. Parallel with that I tried to humidify the external air, thus despite heating I managed to ensure 45-50% humidity in the workshop and 55-56% humidity in the tent. When the required humidity was achieved, the boots began to soften in a few days. The change was palpable: the hardly movable leather became malleable and flexible without any effort. The paper filler dried hard earlier could easily be removed from the leg and a bit harder from the foot. Restoring theform of the boot in humidification tent The most time-, patience- and inventionconsuming job was restoring the boots to near their original shape, since the leather got used to its deformation over the past sixty years or so. I regularly moved, "exercised" the body of the boots when they had gained enough flexibility in the humidification tent. After each "training session" I filled the footwear with tightly crumpled paper wadding. After about two weeks I started local restoration the first step of which was always a powerful wetting of the target area through semi-permeable Sympatex membrane. The result of shaping was visible in a few days' time in most cases, but after removing the "forcing tools", the leather began to shrink to its earlier state in a few minutes, so the tools of each phase of reshaping had to be kept on the boot to let the leather get used to the original-but-new location. Reshaping with the instruments providing the force of required size and direction was thus a very slow process and took over four months. The greatest force had to be applied to opening the boot's heavily shrunken leg and the strongly upward curling head part. The slightly creased leather tolerance at the joint of the leg and vamp devised for the easier moving of the foot let the two parts open to right angle even in the shrunken state without local wetting, but at the same time it broke turned towards the instep of the sole and when I let go of the head, it jumped back into the original position. Therefore, I