This course will take place on the weekend of the 17th and 18th of March 2012 in the beautiful setting of the Art Workers Guild in Bloomsbury, London.

It will consist of three 1½ hour classes each day. Day one will cover furniture, paintings, and textiles. Day two will cover documents, books and photographs, metalware and ceramics and glass. Working with objects, participants will learn to identify the materials objects are made of, how they are damaged and how to prevent that damage through proper handling, cleaning, display and storage.

Lunch and refreshments are included in the price of £210. For further information and to make a booking please feel free to contact Erica directly or download a booking form below. 20 places only.

Antiques Course

The Care of Family Heirlooms, Antiques & Fine Art in the Home

The Care of Ceramics & Glass : Ornaments, Dinnerware, Chandeliers, Mirrors.

While ceramics and glass are reasonably inert, when they are damaged it is usually catastrophic. Crizzled glass and biscuit ware ceramics require special care. Students will learn how to safely handle, store, display and clean ceramics and glass to prevent catastrophic damage. We will look at mercury and silver mirror glass and the care of chandeliers.

The Care Of Furniture: Brownwood, Japanned & Lacquerware.

Furniture warps and is marked, is attacked by wood worm and damp and all of this damage is easily prevented. Students will learn how and when to clean and maintain furniture including how to wax furniture, where to position it in a room and how to safely move it. We will concentrate on brownwood furniture and lacquerware and how to distinguish it from japanned ware and papier mache.

The Care of Paintings : Oils, Acrylics, Watercolours & Frames.

When is craquelure a sign of greater problems in a painting? How do you clean a gilded frame? Do acrylic paintings ever dry? Students will learn about the materials used to create paintings and frames and how and why they age. They will also learn how to safely handle and hang paintings.

The Care of Metals: Flatware, Statuary, Coins & Scientific Instruments.

How do you stop silver tarnishing and wearing away, iron rusting and copper turning green? Why shouldn’t you store lead tokens in an oak cabinet? Can you tell the difference between copper, bronze and brass? In this class we shall answer all these questions and students shall learn how to safely clean, handle, display and store metal items in the home.

The Care of Documents :Family papers, library material and photographs.

Red Rot, cockling, bookworms and book louse, rubber band burn, colour shift and fading: these are just a few of the terms that students will become familiar with in studying the deterioration and preservation of paper-based media. Students will also learn how to clean a book, how to mount documents for display and how to measure the light levels in a room.

Booking

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The Care of Textiles: Carpets, Curtains, Upholstery & Costume.

Students will learn the characteristics of silk, wool, cotton and linen and how to identify them using burn tests. They will learn about the pests that feast on textiles such as the clothes moth and the carpet beetle. We will look at how to use carpets so that they are not damaged and how to properly pack away a treasured family heirloom such as a christening robe or a military uniform.

Course Description