A Tale of Two Warriors

• The TCC’s Conservation Services team treated two 19th century warrior costumes from the Wallace Collection, London.

• The Rajput warrior’s costume was conserved in 2003-04 and the Mandarin warrior’s in 2005-06.

• Both presented major challenges – the conservation of multi-layered, 3-dimensional objects which each had very heavy metal elements.

• This slide show presents some of the complex work involved.

• The two costumes are once again on display at the Wallace Collection.

The Rajput Warrior before and after conservation

The gauntlets, or Dastana, before treatment

Rajput Warrior – before conservation

Dastana – showing liningof metal embroideredred silk velvet

Rajput Warrior – before conservation

Boots before conservation –note deformation due to weightof the costume

Lining of the boots –fabric at the top and leather below.

The tunic before treatment:the metal rivets and panels make the tunic extremely heavy and difficult to handle

Mounting the conserved tunic onspecially designed form

Rajput Warrior after conservation

The Mandarin Warrior

Before conservation

Mid-nineteenth century

Chinese (Ch’ing Dynasty

c.1821-1850) court dress

robes formerly belonging to

a military mandarin at the

Imperial court in Beijing.

Tunic detail

Conservation in progress

Tunic before conservation

Tunic after conservation

Boots before and after conservation

Specially designed mannequin After conservation

The Mandarin Warrior

Acknowledgements

With thanks to the Wallace Collection for commissioning

the TCC to undertake these fascinating and challenging

projects and for giving permission to use the images in this

presentation

Thanks also to the Leche Trust which generously gave a

grant to support the conservation of the Rajput Warrior