AIC's 43rd Annual Meeting

Historic globes are fragile objects. Few survive without some evidence of change to the varied materials used in their fabrication, including damage to the globe shell, loss of the paper or design media, staining, entrenched grime, discolouration or loss of the protective varnish, or poor quality repairs. While an improvement in condition is the primary focus of treatment and the foundation of an improvement in appearance, attention directed specifically at the legibility of a globe is equally legitimate. When designing a conservation treatment, it is critical to compare how a particular globe could appear relative to its individual condition, and how that globe should appear relative to other examples of the same edition. This vision must then be married with the desires and budget of the client and custodian. The large format terrestrial globes produced in mid-nineteenth century Britain were extraordinary works of cartography, instrumentation, and the decorative arts. The 36 inch diameter pair of celestial and terrestrial globes, dated 1845 and 1851 respectively, were the largest productions available from the Malby and Co. and mirror on a larger scale the general methods of fabrication that were developed in the early sixteenth century on smaller diameter globes. The complex construction incorporates fabric and papier-mâché, plaster, intaglio printing on paper, hand-coloring, coatings, engraved brass, glass, wood, and faux finishes. The conservation of artifacts with this complex array of materials represents an interdisciplinary approach requiring collaboration amongst paper, furniture and horology specialists. Because these globes were produced using intaglio printing and hand coloring, which was to be superseded by color lithography later in the century, they still held great visual and textural appeal. Accurate restoration of the information on the losses allowed for the exploration of the most innovative options for image reproduction via digital photography, image manipulation, and archival printing, and their viability for effective integration into a work of cartography. The conservation and restoration of a pair of Malby & Co. globes serves as a case study of the methodology for designing a conservation treatment, the coordination of interdisciplinary experts and state-of-the-art methods for image reproduction.