Caring For Textiles

Textiles enrich our lives. We preserve, repair, restore & display.

  • Home
  • About
    • Bios
    • Client List
    • Press and Articles
    • Testimonials
  • Our Work
    • Services
    • Installations
    • Featured Projects
    • International
    • Before and After Treatment
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Privacy
    • Privacy Statement
    • Cookie Policy

Gloriously Blessing the Baby…and Restoring the Glory to the Gown

October 9, 2017 By Julia 2 Comments

Over the years we have cleaned, conserved, and repaired hundreds of historic christening dresses. Each one is different, short or long, tiered or sheer, embroidered or laced, pleated or smocked – each with its own family stories. Most have very yellowed ‘bib’ areas from sweet milky spittle, and often a host of rips and tears…..it seems that no matter how big the babe is, parents must squeeze the wee one into the family gown.

In the galleries that follow, you can see some of the typical stitch repairs to these gossamer voile dresses…

Close up of hole damage, before…
…and after.
Shoulder damage before repair…
…and after.

Before
After

Ruffle detail, showing acidic stains
Ruffle, after restoration

Gowns are photographed, often wet cleaned to remove any ‘sugar’ stains from milk or parents’ champagne, and the dark yellow brown discoloration from acids.


Painting by Michael Ancher, c 1885. Ribe Kunst Museum.

Recently, I was in Denmark for the ICOM CC Triennial Congress, where I stumbled upon this precious painting of a christening. I’ve never seen a painting of a christening, much less one with such exquisite detail of the gown, showing the tactility of the white cotton, as well as the significance and tenderness of the ceremony. Here, in a sparse 19th c Danish Lutheran church, a small group of loved ones gathers around the child. The painter makes the glimmering white dress the center of the canvas, accentuated by the visual pause between the child and the minister.

Like a mirror, this painting reinforces the importance of my preservation work.

 

 

 

 


painting by P. Ilsted, 19th c.

Perhaps the baby in Ancher’s painting above grew up into this darling little girl, stitching by the window… 

Filed Under: News Tagged With: acidic stains, conservation, conservation treatments, Danish Lutheran church, embroidery, family gown, historic christening dresses, Michael Ancher, milky spittle, preservation, Ribe Kunst Museum, Ruffle detail, sugar stains, textile conservation, yellowed bib

Comments

  1. Penny Clifton says

    October 10, 2017 at 2:41 pm

    Lovely! And impressive repairs and cleaning, as always Julia.

    Reply
  2. Moira says

    October 10, 2017 at 3:36 pm

    So evocative and informative – thank you!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Copyright © 2025 Caring For Textiles. All rights reserved.

Site designed & maintained by

Copyright © 2014 Caring For Textiles

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage {vendor_count} vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}
Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, Caring For Textiles uses technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent may change your experience on our site with certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage {vendor_count} vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}