Object History

Unfortunately, we don't have extensive records on many of our objects. Sometimes we don't know if an object was donated to us in a broken state, or if it broke in our care (over the nearly 40 years a museum in some form has existed). So it was really exciting for me to find a contact print documenting the repair of a broken object.


I presume this occurred in the 1970s, when there was a great deal of activity in the collections. You can see that the ceramic figure was in (at least) two pieces, broken right down the middle.


Presumably, an adhesive was applied to the broken edges, and then it was held together. By what look like rubber bands. And then it is all one piece again!


And the repair has held through all the years. You can still see the crack running down the center of the figure.


I've got a large box full of negatives to go through. I wonder what other object stories we'll uncover as we work through those.