STORING AN OVERSIZED MUSEU DE LISBOA TEXTILE BANNER COLLECTION

Abstract. In 1947 Lisbon held the "Cortejo Histórico de Lisboa", a parade belonging to the “VII Centenary of the Reconquest of Lisbon to the Moors” celebrations. For the accomplishment of this parade, hundreds of scenic objects and accessories were created and three thousand extras and actors participated. Museu de Lisboa has in its collection a significant set of these objects, with highlight to the seventeen-banner collection. These banners that since 1947 were kept in different warehouses, were transferred in 2008 to the Museu de Lisboa Central Storage Unit textile room. The large dimensions of these objects were the main preventive conservation issue the Museum had to solve, regarding the way of storing the collection. In 2018 the Museum designed a project for the vertical storage of these banners. Due to its enormous size (being the biggest 315 cm height and 212 cm width) it was impossible for the museum to store these objects in flat format. The alternative was designed and executed using Tycore® boards as backing panel, hinged with acid-free buffered paper sheets and then glued together into one large piece with the same size as each banner. The banners with textile strip extensions were mounted onto the panels and stored vertically on metallic grids used for the storage of the Museum painting art collection. Treatments such as dust cleaning, tear consolidation and stain removal were carried out to stabilize the banners prior to the mounting on the boards. This paper describes some of the steps of this eight-month project, involving six people.