6 The fall-front cabinet for honorific orders of King D. Luis I (1838-1889) Examination and conservation treatment KEYWORDS: Victorian Style; 19th century furniture; furniture to contain and transport of jewels; fallfront cabinet; furniture conservation-restoration. The fall-front cabinet for honorary orders of King D. Luís I (1838-1889), from the collection of the National Palace of Pena (PNP2136), Sintra, Portugal, was in a bad state of conservation since it has never been restored before. For that reason and because of its uniqueness, and historical value, a conservation and restoration intervention with an historic, artistic and technological investigation was developed as part of a master’s internship in a partnership with Parques de Sintra-Monte da Lua, S.A., and the Conservation and Restoration Laboratory of the Polytechnic Institute of Tomar. As an historical-artistic furniture, typologically, is a container with the purpose of transporting jewellery, insignia and royal decorations. Suggesting a Victorian Style, it has a rectangular parallelepiped shape, with a front-hinged door, five internal drawers, all with metallic handles and decorated with paper and a blue velvet fabric, in the lower drawer, which covers the basrelief of two necklaces referring to two honorific orders. On the outside, metallic accessories can be seen on the edges, in the decorative friezes, in the King's monogram, on the top, and two side handles, which present a chiselled decorative simplicity, with symmetrical and geometric lines of vegetal motifs. With macro and microscopic examination, we could identify wood, metal, paper and fabric, as well as the use of different constructive and decorative techniques like glued assemblies; dovetail constructions; the application of metallic accessories for fixing and articulating; decorative pieces and accessories with inlays, cut and chiselling techniques. Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) examinations allowed information about the bonding adhesives, and the energy dispersive x-rays fluorescence (EDXRF) the identification of brass alloy. The major intervention consisted in cleaning the wooden surface and the metal accessories, and in the structural stabilisation of drawers, with the removal and replacement of corroded mild steel nails for wooden dowels. The paper and fabric were mechanically removed, and the paper treated in a water immersion, following by the consolidation of the tears and filling the gaps with Japanese paper toned in a similar colour, on both, finalised with the application of a protective and finishing layer with French polish. joana.carmo9[at]gmail.com
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