Once we determined that the remaining three wedding dresses, requested for the exhibtion Of Love and War, were able to be safely put on display, the textile conservators worked in collaboration with curators and exhibition staff to determine the dimensions of showcase and, the types and styles of mannequins. To get the most accurate dimensions the dresses were placed on temporary mannequins and the trains were arranged as they will fall on display.  In the picture the two wedding dresses in the foreground have undergone no conservation treatment and are on ill-fitting temporary mannequins, the wedding dress in the back is on a mannequin previously custom made for it. 

Wedding dresses for Of Love and War on temporary mannequins

As part of the process of conservation we will ensure that mannequins are custom made for all the wedding dresses and uniforms on display in Of Love and War.  This will ensure that the garments are correctly supported and shaped and that all materials used in the construction of the mannequins are of archival quality.

Back in September, I was doing some work out at our Treloar Annex, which is where our conservators work.  I was videoing the construction process of the mannequins being made for the 3 wedding dresses  that are to be included in the “Of love and war” exhibition. During a break in filming I got talking to Jessie Firth, who was working on one of the wedding dresses .  She was applying fake perspiration to material to see what effect it would have.  Picking up my trusty camera, I went down to the conservation lab and the following is an interesting account of just what 65 year old perspiration can do to a wedding dress and how conservators plan to tackle the problem it presents.  

Sweat on a 60 year old wedding dress

 As previously explained four wedding dresses were initially selected for “Of Love and War“. One of the wedding dresses, originally owned by Mrs N S Bissaker, required hundreds of hours of painstaking work before it would be strong enough for display, so unfortunately it will not be ready for display in “Of Love and War”.  Instead this dress with go on our Vulnerable Textiles conservation list and be conserved with all the care it deserves to preserve it for the future. In cases like this, it is the vulnerability of the dress that determined its exclusion from this exhibition. However, the Memorial plans to make images of this dress available on its website in the near future.

Detail of the front bodice of Mrs N S Bissaker wedding dress.

Detail of the upper back bodice of Mrs N S Bissaker wedding dress.

You can see in the pictures the fragile state of the lace, which has many holes visible as black areas.  For full conservation of this dress, sheer silk panels will be inserted behind each piece of the dress and then the lace will be carefully stitched to these panels, giving the dress the structural support it requires.

Here is the first of several blog posts about the wedding dreses being considered and conserved for our upcoming Of love and war exhibition.

Recently the Textile Conservation Laboratory retrieved from storage four wedding dresses that are proposed for the up and coming exhibition Of love and war.  Three of the dresses – originally owned Mrs Isabel Bell, Mrs Audrey Norton  and Mrs Norma. Bissaker – are relatively new to the Memorial’s collection and have not undergone any detailed conservation treatment. The fourth dress – owned by Mrs Violet Glover – has been fully conserved as it was used in an earlier exhibition . The pictures attached show what the dresses look like in their storage boxes. 

Wedding dress of Miss Isabel Margaret Platt-Hepworth

Wedding dress of Mrs Audrey Norton

Wedding dress of Norma Bissaker

wedding dress of Mrs V B Glover 001

Once curators select these items as potential objects for display in the exhibition, textile conservators have to carefully document the condition of the wedding dresses. Part of this process is to determine if they are stable and strong enough for display on mannequins for this exhibition. Special consideration is given to the materials when assessing if they are able to be displayed not only at the Memorial, but also at the venues around Australia they will travel to in 2010 and 2011.

George Lambert ‘Study for Dead Trooper and detail of Turkish trench, Gallipoli (pro Patria)’ 1919 ART02857

The majority of conservation treatments on paintings in the George Lambert: Gallipoli & Palestine Landscapes exhibition were relatiavely straightforward. There were a few exceptions to this rule, one being Study for Dead Trooper and detail of Turkish trench, Gallipoli (pro Patria), oil on canvas, 1918. A lot of work was required on the painting and its frame. This included: cleaning the surfaces of the painting and its frame, filling and inpainting the frame, cleaning the canvas edges, strip lining the whole work, attaching the canvas to a new stretcher, flattening some areas of the canvas as well as filling and inpainting the paint layer. The frame had a number of specific issues. The task of removing the old layer of gold coating from the frame was more difficult than usual as there were many layers of gesso between the bronze leaf and the top gold coating that had to be removed. There were also problems with previous repairs to the frame that were falling off during the cleaning process. As the repairs to process the frame’s corners progressed much of the old fill broke away, loosening sections that were previously fixed down. Subsequently, many parts of the corner mouldings had to be re-placed into position and sometimes new sections were moulded to size and shape. Inpainting of the filled areas and all the losses on the bronze leaf original base layer also required hours of work. Difficulty arose as there were many small areas, each of varying tones of gold. It was also one of the larger frames to be included in the exhibition so there was a greater surface area to deal with than the others.This oil on canvas painting was originally stretched onto a stretcher but at some point the canvas was laid onto a wood panel. Possibly this was to make it easier to fit into the frame and there are several examples in the collection of this having been done.

‘Study for dead trooper’ (ART02857), back of frame with corner keys

Work on the canvas began by firstly carefully removing it from the wood panel support. The canvas was not adhered very well to the panel so removal was reasonably straightforward. The back of the canvas had a great amount of old adhesive around the edges. This adhesive had to be removed to have the cleanest possible surface for further treatment. Once the old adhesive was removed the edges were slightly dampened and flattened with a heated spatula. The flatness allowed easier manipulation for the procedure of adhering polyester strips. Each strip was adhered to the canvas edge with BEVA® 371 film under heat. These polyester strips became extensions of the canvas and allowed for a greater surface area to staple the canvas to the new stretcher bar. The addition of these strips also gave the weakened canvas edges much needed extra strength. Each edge was carefully aligned and stapled onto a new stretcher. The sides of the canvas were protected by thin strips of card for added protection from the frame rebate. The tension in the canvas was then adjusted by the ‘keys’ in the corners of the stretcher. The next task was flattening four bulges in the canvas. These areas were left under a poultice and flattened with weights. Consolidation of two areas of flaking paint was undertaken using an adhesive combined with heat to attach the fragile areas. The final process was glazing, rehousing and putting a protective backing on the painting. A laminated glass was placed into the rebate edges, the painting slotted in and a backing board sat behind the canvas. The backing board was fixed down with several brackets and hangers were nailed into the frame. Laminated, non-reflective glass was used to provide better viewing and strength as the painting will be travelling as part of the exhibition.

Ilaria Poli, Conservator

‘Rest Gully and pack mule’ 1919 by George Lambert ART02856

With all the work the conservation team – David, Ilaria, Sharon, Gajendra and Sophie - have done on the Lamberts for the exhibition, lots of new things have emerged - and the backs of the images are a goldmine for information. We’ve uncovered other paintings, unfinished sketches and interesting old labels. All of this adds to our understanding of George Lambert and how he worked.

The ‘Double trouble’ post revealed the story of uncovering the back of one painting to find another – The top of the Taurus Ranges. On the back of The Nek, Walker’s Ridge, site of the charge of the light horse is a study of a horse and pack mule in Rest Gully at Gallipoli (now framed so that is visible). During his stay at Gallipoli in 1919, Lambert was assisted by soldiers assigned to help him. On this occasion he was accompanied by someone he termed a ‘Dinkum’ Aussie’ who carried the painting gear, and odd bits of salvage on a pack-mule. Lambert rode what he described as “a very ugly plug, a small draught horse which, though unspeakably plain, is useful and has a fondness for the mule. The mule breaks away every fifteen minutes or so when we camp for painting and the Dinkum shows the stuff he is made of by sliding down the side of the precipice and catching her, tethering her by some special stunt … then he climbs laboriously back to me and by the time he reaches my summit she is off again; quite a good circus for a grey day … one afternoon I varied the programme by doing a sketch of the little gully, called Rest Gully, where the 5th Field Ambulance, from Sydney, and commanded by Dr. Roth, was camped during the occupation. With the horse and mule in the foreground it made a decent sketch”. (1) 

‘Walad camp follower’ 1918 by George Lambert ART02698

On the verso of Jebel Saba, near Nalin is Walad Camp follower, an oil sketch of an Arab boy. It’s a fairly simple study with lots of the background quickly dashed in. There is one brief reference to this work in a list of paintings consigned by Lambert from Palestine to London in May 1918 where he says that on the back of Jebel Saba, near Nalin “there is a study of a Walad Camp Follower.” ‘Walad’ is Arabic for ‘boy’ and a short entry in the publication Australia in Palestine noted: “You occasionally find Arab boys travelling with the Light Horse, keen little beggars who act as cooks’ offsiders and batmen’s batmen, and officers smile and sympathetically shut their eyes to it.” (2) We don’t know as yet where Lambert painted this portrait and can’t assume that just because it’s on the back of the Nalin work that it was painted around there. All the backs of the Lambert oil on cardboard and wood panel sketches were sealed with varnish or shellac to prevent the wood from warping or splitting. This is what causes the dark and light bands across the image of the boy (above).

1. Thirty Years of an Artist’s Life, by Amy Lambert, Sydney 1938, pp. 104-05.

2. Australia in Palestine, Sydney 1919, p.118.

Before the invention of the photocopier, people had to rely on all sorts of different techniques to make copies of correspondence and text. In the 1780s there was letterpress copying where a dampened sheet of thin tissue paper was laid against the inked side of an original document and then put in a press. The two sheets were pressed together producing a mirror image of the original text on the tissue. Due to the tissue’s semi-transparency, when it was held up to light the mirror image text could easily be read through from its back. The inks used in this process were made from oak galls (gallotannates) and logwood.  The most commonly used wet ink copy paper was high-quality Japanese tissue. The disadvantage with ink press was that the tissue paper had to be thoroughly wet to get the mirror image and only a few copies could be made. This made it a costly and complicated process.

Tissue paper placed over the copying pencil inscription

Copying pencils were invented in the 1870’s and within a decade had overtaken the wet ink press method of letterpress copying. The younger generation might not know the magic of the colourful purple pencils. They were the predecessor to the ball point pen. Similar in appearance to graphite pencils, copying pencils contained a dye which turned purple when moistened. They were marketed as a product which could not be erased because the main component of the pencil was an aniline dye which produced a purple colour when dissolved in water or alcohol. The other components of the copying pencil were clay (kaoline) and graphite. Other colours used were red, black, green and combinations of dyes. The aniline dye in the copy pencil produced stronger copies and more copies. Another advantage was that the aniline dye was not affected by exposure to the air (as was the ink) and therefore copies did not have to be produced instantly.

The copy (in reverse) is made

The copying pencil rose to prominence during the First World War as it could not be smeared or erased easily. Archival records of the time show that Great Britain bought thousands of copying pencils per week to supply to British and Allied officers. These pencils were much more convenient to use in the field than were pen and ink.

George Lambert ‘Last Brigade Headquarters in the north: leading to Brigade Headquarters, with artist’s notes’ 1918

George Lambert used copying pencil in some of his drawings including the work (left) Last Brigade Headquarters in the north: leading to Brigade Headquarters, with artist’s notes (loose sheet from the`Brown book’ ART11393.344). He was possibly issued some pencils by the War Records Section when he was commissioned and he also could have picked them up when travelling with the troops. Sometimes Lambert’s drawings were done completely with copying pencils and sometimes with a mixture of copying and graphite pencils. At the Memorial there are a few examples of these works. In preparing drawings for the George Lambert exhibition, we carefully surveyed all the drawings to make sure which ones might have copy pencil in them. Copy pencil drawings are easily identified under the microscope by their purplish tone, however identifying combination drawings can be problematic. To avoid dissolving the copy pencil component of a combination drawing, professional conservators conduct thorough solubility tests for every colour before washing and cleaning these delicate items.

Gajendra Rawat, Paper Conservator

Further reading:
1. Dube, Liz (1998). The Copying Pencil: Composition, History, and Conservation Implications.  AIC, The Book and Paper Group Annual, Vol 17, 1998.

When Gajendra Rawat and I (Sophie) surveyed the Lambert artworks on paper for the exhibition we identified a couple of works that required some repairs prior to being displayed.

before treatment: ‘Train station, Semakh’ 1919 by George Lambert (ART11393.354)

This drawing Train station, Semakh by George Lambert (left) had areas of loss due to an insect attack (which happened before we purchased the drawing in 1930). Lambert described Semakh as “a railway station of picturesque conglomeration of not more than usually dirty Arab huts, and a few tents and horses of the occupation people on the shore, southern end, of the Sea of Galilee. It is really beautiful here.” ¹ The drawing was made in June 1919 as Lambert toured Palestine after his visit to Gallipoli with the Australian Historical Mission.

We decided to infill these losses with western style papers. Western papers are made from short fibres such as cotton linter or wood pulp. The paper was chosen based on its weight and texture being similar to Lambert’s. It is a medium weight western paper with no papermaking marks (chain or laid lines). As the paper was not the right colour it was toned with high quality watercolour paints. The shape of the loss area was traced to enable the most accurate reproduction of the paper shape required.

Area of loss after treatment

The western paper used for the repair was adhered to the drawing with dilute wheat starch paste with a Japanese tissue repair strip on the back for support. Japanese tissue paper is made from long ‘bast’ or plant fibres like Kozo, Mitsumata, or Gampi, which are all light and strong. We are guided by conservation ethics so we only use materials of the highest quality and most stable nature, for example starch paste and Japanese tissue, and the repairs must be completely reversible to allow for removal if it is necessary in the future. Once repaired the drawing was left under weights for a couple of days to make sure it was nice and flat. As you can see in the picture below, the end result was that the loss was disguised yet the modern repairs are still visible to the trained eye.

1. Amy Lambert Thirty Years of an Artist’s Life, Sydney 1938, p. 125.

Sophie Lewincamp, Conservator-Paper

Windamere, Cobbitty

Lenore Heath who works in the Photographs section at the Memorial has an interesting link to George Lambert. Lenore’s grandparents, Ben and Alice Heath, owned the guesthouse ‘Windamere’ where Lambert died in May 1930.

Ben was born in Slough, England in 1887 and migrated first to New Zealand and then Australia, settling in Sydney. He married Alice Ward in 1915 and shortly after enlisted in the Australian Flying Corps, serving three months in Egypt as a sergeant air mechanic before being invalided back to Australia after being diagnosed with an ‘irritable heart’.

The dining room and river views, Windamere

Ben and Alice bought the property in Cobbitty in late 1925. It backed onto the Nepean River and was ideal for a guesthouse. In 1928 they built ‘Windamere’ that boasted facilities including its own electricity plant (bought from a Kings Cross theatre), a nine hole golf course and polo ground, dining, lounge and dance rooms, and a resident pianist. Activities advertised included billiards, tennis, table tennis, shooting, horse riding, swimming, and fishing. Ben and Alice were helped by their four children one of whom was Jeffrey, Lenore’s father.

In May 1930 Lambert stayed at ‘Windamere’. Lambert had contacted his friend Brigadier General George Macleay Macarthur-Onslow to ask about horses he could ride during his rest break. Macarthur-Onslow suggested that the owner of ‘Windamere’, Ben Heath would have some good horses, but Lambert decided to take his own horse ‘Old Iron’. Although Lambert was under medical instructions to have complete rest, this did not stop him from riding ‘Old Iron’.

It was at ‘Windamere’, that Lambert, while repairing a feedbox had a heart attack and died. A newspaper reported the incident: “Yesterday morning he [Lambert] took some light exercise, and, in the early afternoon, he decided to get a piece of timber to mend a feed-box. He walked directly to the wood-heap, and as he was about to split a piece of wood he fell forward unconscious. Help was quickly forthcoming, and Dr. Crookston, who was summoned, made a hurried journey to Windamere, but the famous artist was then beyond aid.”

‘Windamere’ continued operating for some years but business declined and the Heaths sold it. During the Second World War Ben enlisted in the US Army Small Ships Division and served in the South West Pacific for ten months. His son Jeffrey served in 30 Squadron, RAAF in Papua New Guinea and fortunately father and son were able to meet in New Guinea twice during the war.

Today, the 100 acre Windamere property is surrounded by the rapidly growing outer suburbs of Sydney’s south west. 

Lenore Heath and Janda Gooding

Exciting things don’t happen every day in the Memorial’s Painted Surfaces Lab. For us, work on the Lambert exhibition mostly involves framing and glazing issues. The frames were originally covered in bronze leaf, but sometime later, probably in the 1960s, many of them were spray painted with nitro-cellulose based gold paint. Some of the mouldings on the frames have also been damaged or are missing. Our job is to remove the gold paint, rebuild any lost or damaged parts, retouch where necessary and glaze the painting ready for exhibition. A certain sameness can therefore creep into the work.

Every so often, however, a painting will come along that gives us a new challenge. Achi Baba from Tommy’s Trench, Helles was one of those paintings. There was great excitement when we removed it from its frame and discovered another sketch on the back. Instead of covering it up again, it was decided to frame the back of the work in such a way as to ensure that the sketch on the back remained visible. The challenge was to make sure it looked the same as the other frames for the exhibition.

Lambert frame before treatment

Lambert frame during treatment

Lambert frame before and during treatment

In accordance with our usual practice, the gold paint on the frame was removed. The moulding had been repaired previously but some pieces had not been replaced and others had been put in the wrong place. The latter were removed and new mouldings were made using impressions taken from undamaged frames. The repairs and damaged areas of bronze leaf were then inpainted with bronze pigments. As we did not want to change the depth of the frame our options were limited. It was decided to glaze the verso with thin perspex and to use a window mount to keep it away from the painting. Brackets were hand made from brass and the colour of the build up was continued onto the back of the frame.

Front of Lambert frame after inpainting

Back of Lambert work after treatment

Although the sketch on the back is upside down, it is still visible for future reference. At the same time the frame will sit flush against the wall for exhibition and will appear just like the other frames around it.

Sharon Alcock, Conservator, Painted Surfaces

For some more detail on the sketch that was uncovered see the post The rail journey from Gallipoli to Cairo