16th/17th Century Ushak Rug
Rug, Ushak, 1500-1700, Wool, Turkey, WMGL 1959.0936
The treatment of this historic rug from the Winterthur Museum included a detailed survey, a full immersion wash bath in a custom tank, and stitched consolidation of the long edges of the rug. The treatment was done in tandem with fellow WUDPAC 2nd year Riley Cruttenden.
A Legacy of Use
The rug was thoroughly researched and surveyed before any treatment was proposed. The 400 hundred-year-old handmade rug had many campaigns of darning, patches, and stabilization both in and out of the Winterthur collection. Fellow Second Year Fellow Riley Cruttenden made these wonderful graphics below showing the areas of wear before and after the rug’s accession into the Winterthur Collection.
A Massive Wet Cleaning
Unfortunately, the rug was 5” too wide for our wet cleaning tank, thus we wet cleaned it in a custom tank. The tank was made from 2x4s and two layers of plastic sheeting. The tank was angled so that one corner was over the floor drain. TechnoTiles were laid in the tank and the rug was placed atop those. A garden hose hooked to the DI tap was used to fill the tank and our DI water rinse bar was extended to fit over the tank. A long PVC tube was used to roll and flip the rug. Please see the video content below to see the cleaning in action!
Pre-wet cleaning vacuuming- so much dust!
Even more dust
The dry run of the wet tank
The rug is ready to go
The first soak
So reflective!
Riley Cruttenden rinsing the rug with our DIY DI garden hose.
A Big Stitch Project
To consolidate the losses in the rug along the long edges, we used a combination of techniques. First, we attached a tightly woven cotton patch to both the long edges and laid and couched the looses down. Then we used blanket stitches to consolidate the binding on the edge. We used various colors of cotton thread to get the perfect color match for each section.
Rug Reels
As a part of the @ud_artconservation Instagram team, I created three Reels to showcase the treatment of this wonderful object. The first Reel was viewed over 5 million times and grew the account from 4,000 to 10,000 followers!
1959.0936, Before Treatment, Normal Light, Overall Front
1959.0936, After Treatment, Normal Light, Overall Front
1959.0936, Before Treatment, Normal Light, Overall Front
1959.0936, After Treatment, Normal Light, Overall Back