Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 27. (Budapest, 2009)
Emese PÁSZTOR - Márta TÓTH - Anikó PATAKI - Andrea VÁRFALVI: Turkish Cases from the Esterházy Treasury
II/ 6. Detail of the damaged, incomplete surface of the embroidery of their gnawing. On this layer of leather could be seen a curved mark made by the bow stored in the case. The original cord belonging to the case had been lost. Conservation, restoration Schedule for the restoration of the embroidered front panel As a first step, I removed the dust from the textile using a miniature vacuum cleaner. Then, I cleaned and degreased the surfaces embroidered with metal thread using a mixture of ethyl alcohol and water in equal proportions. The washing of these I performed in softened water, using foam of the surfaceactive substance Hostapon T. Further cleaning proved possible by means of gentle brushing of the surfaces. I avoided mechanical cleaning of the corroded parts on account of their fragility. The disintegrating and disordered parts of the embroidery, which was rinsed many times, I arranged while still wet on Hungarocell sheets, laying them out and drying them over a period of days. As reinforcing material, I used densely woven cotton linen, which I dyed to the blue colour of the original linen ground. I tacked to the embroidery to this reinforcing linen, attaching the contours of the disintegrating parts. When supplementing the missing embroidery material, I took my cue from the restoration technique used on arrow-case no. Ill, which was restored earlier and whose embroidery was successfully made good. I chose strong matt grey cotton thread that matched the colour of the metal-thread surface for this purpose, which, in accordance with the original technique, I laid on and sewed down using yellow flax yarn in the density indicated. I put beeswax on this couching yarn in order to make the sewing easier. The replacement, fixing and supplementing of the bottom parts of the surface, the parts that lacked ground fabric, proved to be a more significant and lengthy task. On these parts, I used padding to raise the height of the embroidery. I laid this padding between layers of yarn and then sewed it down, supple95
