Ukiyo-e under the microscope: Conserving nine Japanese woodblocks from the Baillieu Library Print Collection

Over the past three months conservators at the Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation (GCCMC) have been treating nine Japanese woodblock prints from the Baillieu Library Print Collection. This selection of colourful prints from the Edo period are to be used for teaching at the University of Melbourne in semester two, 2018. Conservation treatment therefore focused on improving the stability and visual appearance of the works for safe handling and display.

Utagawa Kunisada, [Kabuki actors], woodcut
Utagawa Kunisada III, [Kabuki actors], (1891), woodcut, Gift of Dr J. Orde Poynton 1959.
Continue reading “Ukiyo-e under the microscope: Conserving nine Japanese woodblocks from the Baillieu Library Print Collection” →

A Ride to Heaven or to Hell? A new Dutch broadsheet in the Baillieu Library’s collection

The Roman Ride to Heaven (Romsche hemel vaert) published by Anthoni van Salingen
The Roman Ride to Heaven (Romsche hemel vaert) published by Anthoni van Salingen, 1621, engraving with letterpress

A bizarre wagon surmounted by a seven-headed beast makes its way across the centre of a tumultuous image. The grotesque central motif of this 1621 broadsheet must have lured the reader to look at its bizarre details and to personally read the text below, or to listen to someone else read it aloud. Viewers of the time would immediately have associated this scene with the seven-headed beast of the Apocalypse in the New Testament Book of Revelation, and have understood that this was a work of political and religious propaganda.

Continue reading “A Ride to Heaven or to Hell? A new Dutch broadsheet in the Baillieu Library’s collection” →

Connecting collections at Manchester and Melbourne

An exciting project afoot is a collaboration between the universities of Melbourne and Manchester to connect these two geographically distant, culturally rich collections. Face-to-face encounters have already taken place between scholars and special collections staff through two workshops: Manchester in July 2017 and Melbourne in April 2018. These workshops saw specialists come together and exchange ideas about the endlessly interesting works of art, books, textiles, maps and objects located in these cities.

The collections are currently being brought together in a virtual space through the ongoing development of a new Connecting Collections website. The site explores the collective’s first major research theme of ‘Foreign Bodies.’ Every month a different collection object is featured, and this month it is the engraving by Francesco Villamena, Blind man with remedy for corns (Cieco da rimedis per i calli) (1597-1601) from the Baillieu Library’s Print Collection.

Francesco Villamena, Blind man
Francesco Villamena, Blind man with remedy for corns (Cieco da rimedis per i calli), (1597-1601), engraving, Gift of Dr J. Orde Poynton 1959.

Visitors to the site may also read about previously featured items, such as John Speed’s map of Asia (1627) from the Library’s Map Collection.

John Speed's map of Asia
John Speed, Asia with the islands adioyning described, the atire of the people, & townes of importance (London, 1627), engraving with hand-colouring, Map Collection.

Two chilling Gothic micro-stories: Daisy Feller and Joss Deane write for the Dark imaginings exhibition competition

Not the Co-Op Bookshop

There is a space behind the other spaces, the spaces that you see. You will never see this place because you will not look. And if you look, you will not think of it because it is of no use to you. That’s what they will tell you. Do not listen. Look. Please. Come into the room that looks like a storage closet. We are waiting for you in the swivel chair that does not swivel. You will mistake us for someone else, someone with the same name. Do not fall victim to their trickery. Do not be tempted by their orange sign. They will give you things that someone told you that you need. They will make you beg for things. They will make you march in a line of beggars for things you will never touch. Come into the space behind the other spaces. Reach out your arm in any direction. Touch someone else’s mind and steep it with paper teabags into your own heart. Find what you need in the book co-op. We are unaffiliated.

Daisy Feller

Jurassic coast

A year from emigrating, we summered on the Jurassic coast, wet but green. The soil is moist with worms and liminal, squelching mud, and my sister and I rolled about in it naked and howling. Dorset in the rain smells so alive it’s scary. You scale one hillock and you’re lost in emerald feathers… I was blubbering loudly– like at Kew, when I get lost– to be located. A boy my age found me–I straightened.

He was wearing a coat of leaves, his body and genitals covered in mud. I’ve always known mirrors lied to me; his face showed every tremor I had sensed underneath my skin, my gums bleeding when I brushed too deliberately, the desire to chew with my  mouth open, to put myself in a human-like animal. I looked into his eyes hungrily as he pointed to a mound of earth to my left, his right, nails charcoal black and bark-thick.

“Dig”.

I did so, keeping my eyes on him, raking my fingers. His eyes were yellow. I stopped when the first flash of teeth broke the earth.

“Sometimes you forget” he said, stepping towards me. “We’re taken in the woods, you take our place, but you forget”; he was clutching a bluestone rock. “You think you’re the real one…”

The next thing I remember is my mum and dad, red-faced, gasping, swabbing me down with handkerchiefs before gripping me tightly. The rock was in my hand, sticky, smelling funny. The hole in the earth was bigger, white gleaming from the mulch like a dragon’s hoard. I asked my mum who they belonged to. They didn’t look at me when they said naturally “it’s a cow, bunny, just a cow.”

Joss Deane

The Dark Imaginings exhibition will finish in less than 5 weeks, on 31 July, coinciding with the close of a competition which invites University of Melbourne students to write and submit a Gothic story in only 300 words, or less. The response has been extraordinary and reading the stories a rare privilege. Soon I shall be handing them on to the judges, Professor Peter Otto and Dr Elizabeth MacFarlane, who will have some difficult decisions to make. In the meantime, I’m delighted to be sharing (with the authors’ generous permission) two stories that arrived in my in-box very soon after the competition opened. Enjoy! And remember: if you are a student here at the University, there is still time to enter.

Jen Hill
Curator, Music and Co-curator, Dark imaginings: Gothic tales of wonder

Cleaning the English Rare Book Collection

A team of four conservators from the Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation recently completed comprehensive cleaning of the English Rare Book Collection at the Baillieu Library.

A selection of Sir Walter Scott volumes from the English Rare Book Collection
A selection of Sir Walter Scott volumes from the English Rare Book Collection

The collection comprises around 8,600 works from an array of 18th and 19th century British authors, including 2,500 volumes by Sir Walter Scott. While much of this collection is in excellent condition, collection maintenance and regular cleaning is essential to ensure it remains that way. Over time, dust and dirt build up on the cover, spine and textblock of a book, as well as on the surrounding shelves. Recent graduates of the Master of Cultural Materials Conservation program: Adele Barbara, Lois Waters, Mar Cruz and PhD candidate Sadra Zekrgoo, set to work on the cleaning process.

To clean this collection, each book was removed from the shelf, and the text block vacuumed with a HEPA filter vacuum, using a soft brush to loosen dust and dirt. To clean the leather or cloth covers, each book was gently wiped down with a microfibre cloth. Each shelf was also wiped down with a separate microfibre cloth, before every book was returned to its place. This method ensured that any dirt or dust could be removed without disturbing any elaborate gold tooling, or reducing the colour of the fine leather bindings.

A HEPA filter vacuum and a soft hake brush were used to loosen dust and dirt from the head and fore-edge of each book.
A HEPA filter vacuum and a soft hake brush were used to loosen dust and dirt from the head and fore-edge of each book.

During this cleaning process, the conservation team also took the opportunity to conduct a comprehensive survey of the condition of the collection as a whole. Collection surveys allow staff to gain a comprehensive understanding of the health of a collection overall, and identify individual items that may need further attention. Throughout the cleaning project, books showing signs of wear and tear and their associated fragments were placed into individual bags made of polyethylene, an inert archival plastic. The most common type of degradation found throughout the collection was the powdering and flaking of the leather bindings, known as red rot. Detached covers and cracking at the head and tail of the spine were also common. Degraded volumes were also recorded in a collection assessment spreadsheet along with their condition details. This ensures that Collections staff can easily locate these objects, and formulate a plan for their future care and conservation.

Cleaned collection items ready to return to the shelf.
Cleaned collection items ready to return to the shelf.

The English Rare Book collection cleaning project was not just an essential part of collection maintenance and care, but also provided an opportunity to understand the condition of the collection and to the collection’s future needs.

Adele Barbara and Lois Waters

Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation

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