Resurrecting Old Vestments: Antique Vestment Repair and Restoration

Anyone who has a passion for antique vestments will know the story. You have a beautiful vestment that you've come across somewhere, there's only one problem: the vestments are dirty, frayed, or worn out in some capacity. At its worst -- something I've personally seen -- it can mean the underlying silk material has become threaded and is pulling apart, usually at a pressure point like the shoulders where the fabric is more likely to stretch, particularly from improper storage (perhaps an article we should take up in its own right shortly).  Many years ago, I might have thought that such vestments were simply write-off's. Many years later, and with more knowledge and experience behind me, I now understand that such vestments could in fact have the potential of being restored and saved in one or another ways.

Now, like anything, one has to use some common sense here. First, there's the matter of the nature and extent of the damage. Second there is the matter of the particular artistic or historical value (or not) of the vestments -- is the vestment important enough to go through the commitment of restoration?  Obviously, services such as vestment restoration can be a detailed and laborious process, so it naturally comes with the costs associated with such time and expertise. But if a vestment is important enough for reason of its particular beauty, or perhaps because of its particular importance historically (including local history), then it may well be worth taking the next step of contacting a vestment conservator to see what they can do with it. 

Today I am please to share with you two such conservators amongst LAJ's partners, Atelier Sirio, based out of Italy, and Watts & Co., based out of the United Kingdom. 

In some ways, these projects are a bit like our architectural 'before and after' series, but they take a bit more attention to detail to understand the precise nature of the 'before' and the 'after.'  

Our first such project comes by way of Atelier Sirio and it comes within the context of a nineteenth century dalmatic that had suffered various damages to it, not least of which to its beautiful metallic gold embroideries. These embroideries used a technique called 'stumpwork' which effectively raises the embroideries, giving them a three dimensional quality; it was a commonly used technique in this particular century. Unfortunately these had suffered over the course of the years, as did some of the underlying red silk. (This particular vestment appears to have had some previous, less satisfactory restoration attempts performed on it in fact.) Let's take a look and see what Atelier Sirio was able to accomplish here. 

Before: You can see the threaded stumpwork embroideries, as well as the patchy restoration to the red silk. The embroideries should be entirely in metallic gold, but instead you can see the underlying construction as well as yellow, not gold, thread.

After: The restored stumpwork embroideries, now all metallic gold. You can also see the more seamless repairs to the underlying red silk. One will never get these entirely the same as they were originally of course, but the key is getting them to a point where they are visually not noticeable, excepting close up like this, and ensuring the vestment is stabilized. 

Before: Once again, the embroideries have deteriorated here (see the yellow in place of the gold)

After: The same embroideries cleaned and restored.

The final product:

Metallic threading can also become darkened over time, just like household silver and brass items can, so in this next example you can see how the gold thread embroideries have been cleaned (not to mention repairs and cleaning to the underlying cream white silk as well):

I had mentioned previous silk materials becoming 'threaded' -- here is what I meant by that:

This is the type of thing that, in my younger years, I would have mistakenly assumed was a total write off, but with the right conservator, even this can be salvaged. 

The cleaned and restored chasuble. 

Another similar example. To the left is the 'before', to the right is the 'after.' 

* * *

All of the above examples come from the restoration studio of Atelier Sirio, but they aren't the only one's who perform such services of course. Our next example comes from the equivalent workshop of Watts & Co. of London, involving a Marian gothic chasuble whose silk was beginning to tear. In this particular instance, it was determined that the vest solution was to perform a full reconstruction of the vestment.

BEFORE

AFTER

In each of these instances, it would have been a shame to simply take a laissez faire attitude to the vestments, or worse yet even, simply dispose of them. Of course, sometimes that makes sense to do where we're talking about vestments of no particular artistic beauty or importance. But when we are speaking about vestments that represent some importance locally or beyond, or vestments that are of particular beauty, it certainly doesn't hurt to reach out to a conservator like Watts & Co. or Atelier Sirio to begin the consultation process and see if you might be able to reclaim and renew these works, allowing them to once again be put back to their intended purpose at the service of the sacred liturgy. 

-------

Do you like Liturgical Arts Journal's original content? You can help support LAJ in its mission and vision to promote beauty in Catholic worship either by: 

Making a one-time donation or

Subscribing monthly/yearly 

You choose the amount! Your support makes all the difference.