Richard Baker - I read with some interest your query on beeswax #10 Conservation Distribution list. I'm fully aware of the corrosion product caused by beeswax which in reality is part of the historical patina one expects to find on old candlesticks. There is an excellent resource to look at in Sweden www.bukowskis.com <http://www.bukowskis.com/> which is Scandinavia's best auction house and which has been in business since the 1880s. Importantly they have a digital archives with wonderful photography of the tens-of-thousands of objects they have sold over the years. To use this archive you have to register with them with your e-mail address and a PIN number...you must also use Swedish words in your search which can be found using Google translate.
Candlestick = ljusstake brass = massing tal = the expression of "century" such as 18-tal means 18 hundreds etc. It helps to refine your search for if you search möbel (furniture) you will find over 72,000 items. Note that diacritical marks must be used in the spelling of Swedish words (they have 3 extra letters in their alphabet...you can find a Swedish keyboard using Google Translate.) Thus for candlestick (ljusstake) search alone you'll find 10,275 item - brass, porcelain, copper, tin etc from various periods. Refine this to: Ljusstake-18-tal = 2,021 items; ljusstake-17-tal = 1,045 items; ljusstake-16-tal = 387 items; ljusstake-15-tal = 183 items, etc. Thus Richard you will be able to see in considerable detail any significant damage to a stick having been in use for several centuries...and better yet, since you have signed in, you can left click on a photo 2 times and it will blow-up to fill the entire screen. (I use it all the time to examine artifacts in their photo collection like in oriental carpets I can see every fiber in many rugs,) The bottom line is that worrying about brass corrosion on a candlestick ignores how they have always been used and the minimal damage done to the stick over the centuries and the resultant and expected patina...i.e. see the Bukowskis examples. Too many people worry about problems that are of minor effect to an artifact and reflect conservators training without baseline references that display the artifact in a "true" setting.. Bukowskis helps us overcome that. Best wishes for the new year. Richard O. Byrne ****** Unsubscribe by sending a message to [email protected] Archives through August 2016 at http://cool.conservation-us.org/byform/mailing-lists/cdl/ Archives from September 2016 onward at https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
