By Emma House, Curator
As curator at the Garden Museum preparing for an exhibition includes all sorts of work. But one of my favourite things during the process is getting items ready to install. Sometimes this means commissioning a conservator to carry out work but often items just need a little dusting and with a bit of training and practice we can do this in house. The owner of Cecil Beaton’s flower baskets warned me that they hadn’t been used recently and might need a little ‘sprucing up’.
The baskets are an incredibly precious and tangible link to Beaton’s social and professional life. He would use them to carry flowers from his gardens to photo shoots at Buckingham Palace or from Covent Garden Flower Market to prepare for his lavish weekend parties at home. So I wanted them to look their best when they were displayed.
When the baskets arrived I assessed each one, they were in very good structural condition. So I asked our work experience student Findley to give me a hand vacuuming.
We used a special vacuum cleaner with adjustable suction to clean them. This allows us to turn it down when we are working on fragile items or on pieces where the surface is perhaps a little unstable. We used brushes made from horse hair to release dust particles and the odd dead spider from the surface of each basket. Varying the pressure of brushing and suction to get the best results.
After giving Findley a quick demonstration he set about vacuuming all three. He did a fantastic job removing the loose dirt and dust. But they were still quite grimy and layers of dirt covered up the beautiful qualities of the wicker they’re made from.
I wanted to remove the layers of dirt from them. But these were items Beaton used all the time so some level of dirt had been built up over time through use and handling giving an authentic ‘patina’. I didn’t want to take off too much dirt as I wanted to preserve the original patina.
So I decided to try and give them a bit of a more thorough clean. We use deionised water to do this as it’s more pure than tap water and won’t leave mineral deposits on objects.
Making up some little cotton swabs I did some test patches to see if each piece was stable enough and suitable for wet cleaning. I was thrilled with the results so I set about cleaning each one. Carefully going over each area and making up smaller more delicate swabs to get between the strands of each weave.
I was careful to only clean each area once or twice with light pressure as I only wanted to remove recent dirt and dust and not the patina left by Cecil Beaton using them. Quite a few swabs later they were ready for display.
In the design meetings I’d had with Luke Edward Hall we decided we wanted to introduce some of the theatricality of Beaton’s stage sets into the exhibition. We thought the flower baskets would provide the perfect opportunity. So Luke commissioned Leo Flowers to make silver paper flowers which could tumble out of them.
Each basket was carefully wired up with multiple pieces of wire by our fantastic technician Rufus. We used multiple pieces so the basket’s weight was evenly distributed and uneven stress wouldn’t be placed on any single area of weaving.
Then Leo Flowers added cellophane, a material that had been invented in 1908. Beaton often used it in his photographic sets, utilising its reflective and translucent qualities. Leo Flowers silver roses, inspired by Cecil Beaton’s use of tin foil in many of his decorative photographic backdrops were added to finish off the display.
Do come along and see them in the exhibition. If you join as a friend you’ll be able to keep coming back and see all of the exciting exhibitions we have at the museum.
Cecil Beaton’s Garden Party is on display until 21 September
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