Peter Lynn ARCHIVE
Owner: Peter Lynn, New Zealand
Date: September 28, 2006
Item: Type of kite, French pear top
Information:
Earliest form of European kite
Pear shape form is the earliest kite in Europe, this one was discovered
in Hague, Netherlands, but is it French?
Said that Ben Franklin used a type of kite like this to electrocute a dog
French
Size:
Materials: paper, various grades, various types, wood frame
Picture Frame that the kite was found in, was built in 1990/by a museum/Netherlands. Gerard van der Loo, a kite shop owner, received it in middle to late 80s…Someone walked in with it, said it was found it between floor boards/ceiling
the house was being destroyed/or renovated.
Peter says there is one in the British Museum/dated around1840s…or so
Alice Bear is our paper conservator
Studied at Victoria Albert, England
Took concentration in paper conservation
The kite is framed in plex and wood
Stitched to what seems to be museum rag mat board
The frame is in excellent condition, is not at all damaged.
The kite was purchased by Peter Lynn of New Zealand, a commercial kite manufacturer. He has a personal interest in the history of the kite. He felt there was a need to have a paper historian of the period to give us information on the kite; the Drachen Foundation felt it was a special opportunity for us to observe, study and document the process of conservation and preservation of a kite of this quality.
As Alice worked on the kite, to remove it from the frame, the following dialog pursued:
Peter; It's a kids kite, high standard of craftsmanship
Maybe for some rich kid
Artwork, "Christmas motif, top: ornament
Then the reindeer/below the reindeer, dolphins?
This came from a woman who grew up in
Holland, she told me about this traditional design
Cut out of the paper dolls? I am not sure what this is about…
Alice: A fable? Tied to a certain region?
Dolphins are odd
The kite shows that it was made with a lot of care
Peter: Can you date the paper?
Alice: Some people say, yes, within 50 years others say no…
Can have carbon dating done
"Need to ask, what do you want from this testing?"
Cost: $1,000…you will date all the materials, dirt on the paper,
Rest of the materials
It's a destructive sampling
Could do the wood more circumspectly, than the paper
The tail is celluloid wrapped to the foam core/acid free rag board?
Peter: Patches?
Look at all the patches!
Various paper samples
Alice: The patches were applied later, (AB looped) it's a later patch, not the same paper
The paper was patched, because you didn't get "elephant folios" until the 1800s.
Holland was probably enamored by the Japanese, used rice paste or
potato starches
Seemed sewn at the top, bottom and mid point with string/thread
Peter: The kite store was near the canal so it was damp
Far from the window
Alice: Hard to say what the original colors were…
Color: odd that it is "gray"
If the dating is correct…
1773…could have been a form of "blue paper" it was hard to come by, but it was popular
And this would have faded…but what we are seeing in the tail pieces, and how the degregation is showing, it might be ….to fade it would have been in light to have fades…
Since it was buttoned up, it didn't have any direct light, then it would have not been faded blue, but a white or white like with dirt…
Remember, paper was made much better in those days….it would have been better than today….
Red could have been darker/more red…
The kite is pretty dirty…the tail was probably whiter…
The dust from the attic?
Peter: it was stored between the ceiling and the floor/crawl way
Found in the middle 1980s….dating was taken from when it was written on the front of
On the front. Gerard did not pay for it, a man dropped it off and left it.
Alice: Looking at the tail: it's very white in parts
The piece is in very good condition….stored, so it wasn't used,
Chances are within a couple of years of it being made it was stored.
I am changing my mind, I don't think it was blue, but 200 years of stored dirt, from the tail and the pieces that were white, it was probably white…Tail is not wall paper, but decoration
I see water staining, where we think it was stained, it could be blood?
(chuckle)
Scott; Can the paper be cleaned?
Alice: Rolling the cotton swab over it, it's been cleaned…there is no real topical dirt, embedded?
There is "lifting" the decorative pieces are lifting up….
Peter: I would like to make it available to those who want to study it
Kite Museums
Kite Meetings
Must be able to travel
Must be able to look at the back as well as the front
1990: Gerard might have showed us the kite, it was upstairs near his office
He loaned it to a Dutch museum, with the trade that they would build a frame for it.
Alice recommends: framing
Take all the backing off
Start over
To make it view able on both sides, it can be done,
Needs some design
We could secure the kite /looking on both sides
We would use thread over string, so not to confuse the original
With the tacking materials
We would have the piece mounted to plex, then the piece would be
Sandwiched between plex
Using a hook system to secure it…
When you ship, ship flat, with tilt indicators…
And a data logger to measure temp and humidity
Alice: It is held so well in humidity, because it hasn't had changes, now we are having changes in it's environment…light levels, humidity..
In paper, 45 to 50 per cent relative (don't want low relative humidity)
55-65 degrees temperature
Scott Bridle is low, but it was probably there
Alice: This piece has had some serious light, as the backing piece is extremely faded.
Was this repaired with the idea to keep flying it?
Scott: Yes, that's an operational fix with the top spar
The top curved spar is one piece that's pretty sophisticated
Alice: Measurements back of kite
93 cm height
63 cm width
Description of what we saw on the back
Repaired top of spar, cracked on the left side
Scott: "Grandpa's one kite, you can fly it all you want but you repair it…"
Alice: Gift at Xmas time, because of the reindeer….
Glue, it's a paste, not animal, we would see discoloration
The paper is pretty good quality, even the patches, look rough made…
(craft paper) wasn't a finished stock, like for writing letters
There is staining, discoloration. We see more discoloration on the back than the front
It is definitely one sheet of paper….
Scott: could there be a backing paper?
Alice: two layers adhered together? It's two…don't have the same cutout lines
than the front/facing and backing paper meshed together
Transmitted light will determine more
Writing: try taking a photo with infrared film….
Peter: This person was a good craftsman, but this was his only kite
A much loved kite, flown and flown and flown
Peter: They flew kites during a gale
Alice: The tail pieces was from a book…
Peter: It doesn't look that the paper is old, looks contemporary, the patches
The tail pieces, were they from a Bible….Hague is a largely catholic area…
Alice Conservation
There are things that can be done, but not be done
Supposition, nothing has been done to it yet…virginal is good in this case
The condition should be shown
Keeping piece at Artech from this point on….
Removing the kite from the frame backing….
Cut top, then bottom
Then cut the tail pieces away from the backing
Then the bunched tail which was bridged with foam core
Artect Stores
Design work with start with the framing
Artect will give estimates
What do we want, where it will be going, it's traveling needs
What about shipping?
Alice
Will review photos, will write a dialog on the piece
Guidelines to Arttect on the case and framing
