Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T09:18:44.086Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Some Notes on the Preservation, Moulding and Casting of Seals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2012

Hilary Jenkinson
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The task of card-indexing the enormous number of seals scattered over the various groups and classes of documents in the Public Record Office, originally undertaken by Sir William St. John Hope, but interrupted by his death and by the war, was resumed in 1922 by Mr. R. C. Fowler. It was then decided to create a small special section within the Repairing Department, to deal with questions of packing, repairing, moulding and casting. When this work came to be started, it was discovered that the various processes had been hitherto regarded in this country rather as trade secrets; and although some works on the subject have been published abroad, though also various archivists have been most generous in placing their experience at my disposal, I found that some matters which interested us were still unexplained and that in practice we had to make almost every step the subject of more or less elaborate experiment. As we are now passing out of this experimental stage, and as many Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries and other persons in this country are possessors of seals and may be presumed to have some interest in the technical and mechanical processes involved in their preservation, it has seemed worth while to record the result of our modest inquiries in this place.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 4 , Issue 4 , October 1924 , pp. 388 - 403
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1924

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 388 note 1 Mr. Fowler's paper on these seals was read on the same evening as the present note and will be published in Archaeologia, vol. lxxiv.

page 388 note 2 Coulon, Auguste, Le Service Sigillographique…., Paris, 1916.Google ScholarFleetwood, Baron Harald, Moulage et Conservation des Sceaux du Moyen Âge (in Meddelanden från svenska Riksarkivet, ser. I, 59): Stockholm, 1923Google Scholar.

page 388 note 3 Notably the authors of the two works cited and Mile Nicodème, of the Archives Générales du Royaume at Brussels.

page 388 note 4 When the present paper was read examples were shown of all the processes described.

page 388 note 5 The subject is, in a way, one proper to an archivist rather than to antiquaries in general. I have dealt with it only very briefly in my Manual of Archive Administration, because at the time when that book was written I had not yet made any of the experiments described here.

page 388 note 6 For the varying mixtures, see the analysis of seals of various dates from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century in an article by Sir James Dobbie and Dr. Fox, J. J. in the Transactions of the Chemical Society (1914), vol. 105, p. 797Google Scholar.

page 389 note 1 Vermilion, if, as is likely, it included mercury compounds, would have the same effect.

page 389 note 2 I have seen many early seals over which a parchment cover had been sewn, but never one in which the impression had been made on the wax through the parchment. It is probable that these parchment covers are, as a rule, an early archivist's addition: that is certainly the case in a file of fourteenth-century applied seals in Chester 1/1, where addressing tags have been cut off the documents themselves and used for this purpose. I am indebted to Mrs. Sharp for this example.

page 390 note 1 Number 1, June 1913.

page 390 note 2 Dobbie and Fox, op. clt. The fragments analysed were supplied by the Public Record Office and were quite casually selected.

page 390 note 3 It is perhaps worth while to add a note here that many old skippets are of iron, and rusty; if therefore they are left on, great precautions should be taken to prevent their coming in contact with the paper or parchment of the document.

page 390 note 4 In the cases of single seals (generally foreign) the wax and tag were often placed in the skippet first and the impression then made. A good example is T.R. Diplomatic Documents 436 (dated 1430) where the skippet is of wood, turned in the grain of the log. A number of further examples will be found in this class.

page 391 note 1 Where the old creases show a tendency to damage the writing.

page 392 note 1 Such as the signet seals found normally on private deeds of all dates.

page 392 note 2 This is the Record Office practice.

page 393 note 1 Or wire clips may be used provided they are made of brass. The device described is itself a modification of one used by Dr. G. H. Fowler in the County Muniments at Bedford.

page 394 note 1 There are countless small signet seals scattered through the volumes of the State Papers at the Public Record Office.

page 395 note 1 We use a solution of bees-wax, turpentine, and benzine: see Baron de Fleet-wood, op. clt.

page 395 note 2 See the suggestion made above as to the reason for this.

page 395 note 3 We use a mixture of wax and resin in the proportion of about two to one.

page 395 note 4 From this point of view the more skilfully the ‘fake’ is carried out the worse the crime.

page 396 note 1 Pieces of glass jointed with cloth, which is waxed. The question of corrosion of lead objects is treated in Bulletin No. 5 of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (The Cleaning and Restoration of Museum Exhibits, London, 1921, p. 9)Google Scholar; but the method of cleaning there described has not been followed.

page 397 note 1 So that the moulds may all be of one height: we use a width of 3·5 cm.

page 399 note 1 We use a solution of white shellac in methylated spirit, about three ounces to a pint. The method was suggested to me by Professor A. P. Laurie, to whom I am also indebted for advice on the subject of pigments.

page 400 note 1 The variety of children's modelling wax known as Play Wax is a good one. Or bees-wax and resin mixed in the way described below under Casting may be used.

page 401 note 1 Orange vermilion, cadmium yellow, graphite black and oxide of chromium green were the best; the last could be darkened with Prussian blue.

page 402 note 1 Melting point 160° F.: the wax should not boil.

page 402 note 2 Messrs. Gedge, of St. John Street, were good enough to make me up some special stains for this purpose; and I used also some of the ordinary spirit stains and dyes soluble in spirit. I was indebted to Mr. H. W. Fincham, F.S.A., for some suggestions on this point.

page 403 note 1 Suggested to me by Dr. J. J. Fox, of the Government Laboratory, to whom I have been particularly indebted throughout.

page 403 note 2 See the analysis by Dobbie and Fox, op. cit. We use a proportion of roughly two of wax to one of resin. The best levigated powder colour should be used, vermilion and verdigris being the two normal ones. Only small quantities of these will be needed. The materials should not be heated more than is absolutely necessary in mixing; and the wax should never be melted afterwards, but only softened.