(2008) Funded Conservation: designs by Winifred Mold

Winifred Mold was a designer who worked for the Silver Studio from 1912 until 1935.  Approximately 250 designs in our designated Silver Studio Collection have been attributed to her.

This project, funded by the Association of Independent Museums in 2008 with a grant of £4,220, involved the conservation of an eiderdown with a design by Winifred Mold, and fifty-four of her designs on paper. The items for conservation were chosen in consultation with Keren Protheroe, whose PhD research examined the work of interwar female textile designers including Mold.

Eiderdown with a design by Winifred Mold for the Silver Studio, 1920

conservation action

Accredited textile conservator Louise Squire was employed to advise on cleaning, exhibiting and rehousing the eiderdown, which had mould staining from historic food spills. An archival quality box was made especially to fit the eiderdown after the conservation treatment had been completed.

The designs on paper were conserved in house by our Preventative Conservation Officer Emma Shaw, assisted by Jan Crittenden, a paper conservation graduate. All of the items were individually surface cleaned, humidified, pressed and rehoused. A small number required further conservation work, such as consolidation, removal of accretions, minor repairs, washing to remove staining and the removal of acidic board. They were then placed into protective melinex sleeves and rehoused in conservation-grade boxes.

conservation impact

As so often with conservation projects, a relatively small amount of money enabled us to make objects from the collections available much more widely.  This conservation work made a significant contribution to Keren Protheroe’s PhD.  It also meant that we could display the two of the designs and the eiderdown in our exhibition Japantastic: Japanese-inspired patterns for the British home 1880 – 1930.

Update: designs by Winifred Mold have been used more recently by Middlesex University students Sarah Kadrnka and Sofia Piccuito as the starting point for their creative practice.