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Slideshow created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR. Having trouble seeing the slideshow? Photos are also on Flickr.

These slides show the Jan Martense Schenck House as it is being installed in its new location on the 4th floor. In the first few slides, you see the side view of the Nicholas Schenck House, grandson of Jan Martense.

The first step was to lay out the floor boards on a new substructure The boards were originally white pine (Pinus Strobus).

The next step was to erect the posts and braces that form the structure of the walls. These were made from oak (Quercus).

The posts (vertical elements) and beams (horizontal elements) were joined with mortise and tenons that were pinned.

Rigging and scaffolding was used to lift and position the very heavy timbers.

After the wooden sub-structure was built, the interior walls and window frames were inserted.

The attic floor is held up by supports called H bends.

Because the ceiling in the new gallery is higher than its former gallery , a new roof substructure had to be built, matching the pitch of the original roof.

Because of the new height, new roof shingles needed to be added and painted to match the shingles from the 1960 installation.

After paint cross section analysis and on advise of the Curatorial Department, the house was painted red, including the trim as would have been the convention in the 17th c.

Lisa Bruno
Objects Conservator

Q: What does it take to install the Period Rooms?

A: A whole lot of people!

In future posts, we’ll describe how the Schenck House was moved, but right now we are in the thick of preparing the entire floor to re-open to the public. A great deal of dust was generated from the construction of the past two years. Melanie Tran is pictured here vacuuming chairs in the Danbury Room. Melanie is a volunteer in the Conservation Lab, who is interested in attending a graduate training program in art conservation. Getting experience in a conservation lab is one of the requirements for a graduate program.

Here are two of the Museum’s art handlers, Jason and Jim, working with our current intern from the University of Delaware graduate program in art conservation, Jakki Godfrey. They are reinstalling the doors on a piece of furniture called a kas. The kas was recently treated anoxically for a pest infestation. The object was placed in a chamber and the oxygen was exchanged for argon gas, causing the wood eating insects to be exterminated. This technique has the advantage of not leaving toxic residues behind.

The vacuuming and reinstalling will continue for the next couple of weeks.

Please come and visit when the rooms open!

Lisa Bruno

Objects Conservator

The Jan Martense Schenck House is scheduled to re-open to the public in July. It has moved from its original location on the 4th floor to a new location that situates it next to the house of Nicholas Schenck, the grandson of Jan Martense. For those of you who have been coming to the Brooklyn Museum to visit the house since you were kids, and for those of you who have been bringing your children to visit the house, you may notice a bigger difference than simply the change in location. The house, formerly a dark blue when first installed at the Museum has been entirely re-painted deep red, including the trim!

The Jan Martin Schenck House came into the collection in 1950, and was assembled in the 1960’s on the 4^th floor of the Museum in the location that is currently occupied by Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party. When assembled at the Museum, some of the wooden siding was included in the architectural components, but new siding had to be reproduced at the museum to completely finish the house. At that time, the house was painted dark blue, with a white trim.

To make way for the construction of The Elizabeth Sackler Center for Feminist Art which houses The Dinner Party, The Schenck House was disassembled and moved. Jim Boorstein of Traditional Line, an architectural conservation firm, was contracted to undertake this part of the project.

Detail of paint cross section showing the lowest red, and green paint layers, followed by several layers of white.

So why did we change the color from the dark blue to barnyard red? Obviously, any wooden frame house that remained standing in Brooklyn from the 17^th century to the early 20^th, would have been repaired and repainted numerous times as part if its maintenance and up-keep. In trying to understand the paint scheme, we took paint cross sections from the oldest existing pieces of wood siding that were present. This is a way to see what was the paint layer sequence. A small piece of paint is mounted into resin and polished smooth so that the layers can be seen in cross section underneath a polarizing light microscope. This work was done for us by Jamie Martin at Orion Analytical.

It needs to be said that we do not know the age of the wooden siding, and it is unlikely that it is part of the original siding from 1675-1677 when the house was thought to have been built, but it was a place to start.

Our original question was, “Why did they paint the Schenck House blue in the 1960’s installation?”. In examining the cross section, we found no evidence of a blue paint layer in the oldest existing paint from the house. Underneath the uppermost blue layer, which was applied by the Museum, were many layers of white paint, followed by a broken up green layer and an equally distressed red layer directly on top of the wood siding.

Consulting with Dr. Barry Harwood, Curator of Decorative Arts, it was thought that the numerous layers of white represent the painting scheme from the 19th c. onwards, as white was a popular color to paint a wood frame house, during that time period. The green and the red layers could therefore represent the colors the house was painting in the time before the 19thc. From this physical evidence on the cross section, and with the Curatorial expertise provided by Dr. Harwood, regarding the history of 17th and 18th c. houses, the Museum came to the decision to repaint the house red, to represent the oldest known existing paint color.

Dr. Harwood, and Museum Designer Lance Singletary worked with the Museum’s painters to achieve a color and a surface texture that would be in keeping with 17th c. housing painting practices.

We hope you enjoy visiting the newly painted, and newly installed house!

Lisa Bruno, Objects Conservator

The primer is complete. See the video!

It is too humid today to apply the topcoat, and thundershowers are expected later this evening.

Tomorrow is First Saturday at the Brooklyn Museum. My colleague, objects conservator Tina March and I will be giving a talk at 5:15 in front of the Statue of Liberty, discussing the conservation treatment. There is a very good chance that the painting will still be in progress. If you are able, please stop by.

The painting continues. The sculpture has approximately 250 square feet of surface to paint. The progress is good. The winds are less strong today and the team from UHP Projects, Inc is able to apply the primer with a spray gun. The spay gun should help them achieve a smooth and even base layer for the final paint color.

Painting is also continuing on the interior. Because metal absorbs heat from the sun, the temperature on the outside surface of the metal skin is hot, whereas the temperature on the inside, although hot, is less than the outside surface. This contributes to condensation of water vapor on the inside, making the application of a paint layer on the inside a very difficult and slow process.

This is a photograph showing the cross sections of the original paint layers, before removal with the water blasting. As can be seen in the lower paint layers, the statue was various shades of brown for many years. For a few years, the statue was metallic silver (layers 13 and 15). However, in the most recent years (layers 16 and 17), the statue was green.

The images below are from the National Park Service website, showing the actual Statue of Liberty made by Bartholdi. Brooklyn Museum Designer, Lance Singletary and I made a visit to Liberty Island to closely look at the surface of the torch to choose a closely matching paint color. With the help of the Rangers and specifically George Tselos and Diana Pardue for arranging the visit, we were able to find a paint color that closely matches the existing corrosion on the original Statue of Liberty. Please stop by as the painting progresses.

Now that the repairs to the metal skin are complete, the team from UHP Projects. Inc. (Ultra High Pressure Projects) is back and have started to paint the statue. Discussions between the team at UHP Projects, Inc. and the conservator Mark Rabinowitz at Conservation Solutions, Inc. plan out the methods to be used in re-painting the sculpture. To prolong the life of this paint system, the surface of the metal needs to prepared to achieve a good, and strong bond with the paint. A very clean metal surface is needed, and to achieve this both the interior and the exterior were rinsed with a dilute phosphoric acid solution. Painting will be done both inside and outside, and consist of a white acrylic based primer, followed by a green acrylic enamel topcoat. The paint is manufactured to be used in outdoor applications. Normal household paint rollers are initially being used to apply the primer because the wind is fairly strong today in Brooklyn and it may be difficult to control a spray application of paint. These are just some of the conditions that conservators need to cope with in an outdoor environment. The painting should continue for the next few days, please stop by the museum and have a first hand look if you are able.

Many of the multiple layers of failing paint found on the statue contained heavy metals, such as lead, which was a common ingredient in paint products in the United States up until 1978. Due to the hazards of lead associated with public health, the paint on this statue needed to be removed and disposed of in a manner that was safe and in full accordance with existing laws and regulations, dealing with hazardous waste disposal. The large blue tank along side the statue was used to catch and contain the paint during removal. This inevitable necessity has added costs to the conservation project.

The installation of the Museum’s Statue of Liberty replica and the associated conservation project were made possible by the generosity of The Joseph S. and Diane H. Steinberg Charitable Trust. Additional support was given by the New York State Assembly and its Brooklyn Delegation, and John and Diana Herzog.

Public support through both governmental agencies and individual donations is vital to support the collections in the Brooklyn Museum. Conservation projects such as this one will guarantee that the Museum remains a vibrant institution, serving its public’s needs. If you would like to lend your support to these collections, one way is to become a member of the Museum.

Lisa has been giving you a wonderful overview of the on going process. I will confine myself to details specific to the work.

Works of art are technical productions. Sculptures are usually made using industrial or building craft techniques which have been transferred from their original purposes to the making of art. In the case of this Statue of Liberty, much of the techniques that were used were transferred from boat- and auto manufacturing processes. The W H Mullins company, who likely made this work, developed their skills in forming metal skins in manufacturing metal boats. There are still groups involved in the collection and repair of these fascinating artifacts. You can find out more about them at http://www.mullinsboats.com/

The stiff galvanized steel sheets were formed using an “English Wheel”, a rolling device that was used in the making of automoble body parts. An operator would hold the flat sheets between the wheels and by pressing the sheet against it under pressure could form pockets and bend 3 dimensional shapes. http://www.irvansmith.com/catalog2/english_wheels.shtml

This process requires a great deal of hand work and was replaced in auto manufacturing by the use of presses with dies but in the early days an operator formed each sheet by hand with this method.

We are using a similar technology transfer in repairing the skin. Tools from auto body work, including MIG welding and, later, resinous body fillers, are used to repair the rusted sections. Later, like in auto body repairs, the sections will be sanded and painted to blend with the overall surface.

Mark Rabinowitz
Conservation Solutions, Inc.

The repairs to the skin are working. The newly galvanized steel patches are riveted, and then welded in place. It’s not raining today, enabling the repairs to proceed without interruption. When the statue was made in the late 19th c., the process of galvanizing sheet iron or steel was done by dipping the entire sheet into a molten bath of zinc. As the liquid zinc cools, crystals form, creating the characteristic look of galvanized metal. An electroplating process today forms most galvanized sheet steel. This results in a thinner, and likely more uniform deposit of zinc.

These new patches appear shiny because the zinc has not yet oxidized and darkened.

The red rectangle in this picture is a newly applied priming paint layer over a patch. The statue is scheduled to be re-painted at the end of the May, and it will likely rain again before the re-painting. The red paint is a protective layer to prevent corrosion of the new welds and patches, before the new paint is applied. This will help in getting a good bond of the new paint layers to the metal.

It is not fun working in the rain. The team from Conservation Solutions continue the work on the statue, despite the numerous, and often heavy showers we are having in Brooklyn.

Most people think conservation is glamorous, and it is a very interesting, challenging profession that has given me the opportunity to travel and see amazing things, but there are also many times and situations that are the complete opposite of glamorous. Working outdoors, in the pouring rain is one of those times.

A few of the team members are inside the statue with wire brushes scraping off the paint on the iron armature that supports the outer metal sheet. This image shows the interior, as looking up into the statue. The center element is a staircase. When the object was originally installed on the roof of the Liberty Warehouse, we were told that one could walk up the stairs and look down Broadway through Liberty’s eyes. As with most stories, there are only elements of truth. The stairs do access the top of the statue, but there is no evidence of openings in the eyes for viewing.

In-between breaks in the showers, the team works on developing the procedure to repair the holes in the metal skin. It is important for the preservation of the object to have the outer skin be as water tight as possible.

The new metal patches will be riveted in place, following the techniques of manufacture, but this will not give a completely water tight seal. The original sections of metal sheet were riveted and then soldered to one another to create a seal. Because the original metal has developed a corrosion surface or patina, new solder is no longer able to bond well to this corroded surface.

The team is now in the process of trying MIG welding, (Metal Inert Gas), also sometimes known as Gas Metal Arc Welding. A wire of metal is sent through the tip of the gun by the welding machine, which is why it is also called a semi-automatic process. There is nothing simple about it though when dealing with a surface of over 200 year old metal, while standing on a piece of lift equipment, 20 feet up from the ground, in the rain. I’ll keep you posted. If you are in NYC, please stop by the Brooklyn Museum and you can see the progress yourself.