I would leave the stains. Firstly becasue they are a part of the history of
the bag. secondly, with the beading and all, wet cleaning could be asking
for trouble and may not get the stains out anyway. If you really want it
cleaned, contact a textile conservator. Mixed materials mke for many
problems.

Also, the linen may not have been white originally, it may have been
natural linen color and if there is any wool in the broadcloth you
definitely do NOT want to wet clean it. Water will also weaken the threads
holding the beads on and losing beads would be very bad. The blue color
would likely run, too.

If there are no signs of mold and bugs and such, I doubt the bag is under
much threat as long as it is stored well.  Don't forget that too much
conservation can be more harmful than helpful. The goal should not be to
make it look like brand new.

Elizabeth Walton


At 10:34 PM 4/10/02 -0500, you wrote:
>Hello,
>i am currently writing a condition report on this item. The fire bag has
>beading on the lower third of the navy blue broadcloth. The flower patterns
>are done in the most startling color combinations. I vacumed the outside of
>the fire bag, but
>there are small stains and some of the beads do have dirt stuck between them.
>The broadcloth shows no sign of pests. It does have some wear and tearing.
The
>linen cloth inside is a gray color. I would think it was white at one time
 My
>question, is it better to have the textile cleaned by de-ionized water or
>would it better to leave the small stains on the broadcloth?  It appears that
>the two textiles are sewned together. I thank you for reading this if you
have
>worked on an item such as this or can give me your thoughts i would
>appreaciate it
>lynn Stephenson
>Student/volunteer
>University of Iowa Natural History Museum
>
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