A Tale of Two Warriors

1. A Tale of Two Warriors • The TCC’s Conservation Services team treated two 19th century warrior costumes from the Wallace Collection, London. • The Rajput warrior’s costume was conserved in 2003-04 and the Mandarin warrior’s in 2005-06. • Both presented major challenges – the conservation of multi-layered, 3-dimensional objects which each had very heavy metal elements. • This slide show presents some of the complex work involved. • The two costumes are once again on display at the Wallace Collection.

2. The Rajput Warrior before and after conservation

3. Rajput Warrior – before conservation The gauntlets, or Dastana, before treatment Dastana – showing lining of metal embroidered red silk velvet

4. Rajput Warrior – before conservation Boots before conservation – note deformation due to weight of the costume Lining of the boots – fabric at the top and leather below.

5. The tunic before treatment: the metal rivets and panels make the tunic extremely heavy and difficult to handle Mounting the conserved tunic on specially designed form

6. Rajput Warrior after conservation

7. Mid-nineteenth century Chinese (Ch’ing Dynasty c.1821-1850) court dress robes formerly belonging to a military mandarin at the Imperial court in Beijing. The Mandarin Warrior Before conservation

8. Tunic detail Conservation in progress

9. Tunic before conservation Tunic after conservation

10. Boots before and after conservation

11. After conservation Specially designed mannequin

12. The Mandarin Warrior

13. Acknowledgements With thanks to the Wallace Collection for commissioning the TCC to undertake these fascinating and challenging projects and for giving permission to use the images in this presentation Thanks also to the Leche Trust which generously gave a grant to support the conservation of the Rajput Warrior