Would you clean a $1,000,000 Tapestry?

[T Monahan]

Greg Turcotte, co-founder of Centrum Force®, is a competent rug and tapestry cleaner too. He owns an operates Heirloom Oriental Rug Cleaning Ltd. in Calgary, Alberta Canada. He was awarded the contract to clean this famous piece known as the Unity Tapestry located in Gulf Canada Square Calgary, Canada. Numerous types of unusual material were woven into this textile. Even bird feathers!

This piece is valued at about $1,000,000:

This is a tapestry that is about 22’ X 33’ in size. There were many areas that were very fragile. It all had to be cleaned on-site!

 

[The Great Oz]

Did one several years ago that came from a mansion with smoke damage. At the time the largest cost single home residential fire loss in the US.

Though it was hundreds of years old, it was about two-thirds that size, didn't have feathers, was in remarkably good physical condition, and was brought to our shop, so Greg's got the much tougher job.

 

[Total Cleaning]

Tom,

Do you know what protocol and chems this company used to clean this hanging work of art?

 

[T Monahan]

Tom,

Do you know what protocol and chems this company used to clean this hanging work of art?

This large unusually made tapestry hangs in a public place. Greg told me that it had to be done on-site as seen in the pictures. One part of the protocol required a mechanical human lift as seen in the pictures. Although we discussed various techniques and procedures together, I must defer the actual cleaning protocol to him. It was his contract. It's possible he may not desire to fully disclose all his techniques to preserve the mystic, and why he should be the company of choice for projects like this. That is for him to decide. However, I am aware that careful and tedious vacuuming was the first cleaning phase of the two day project. This large piece had many dissimilar materials woven into field. Besides the typical natural fibers, it had metal threads too. One among them was gold. Imagine, cotton, wool, feathers, and gold to name just some.

 

[rhino1]

So this begs the question, how would you price something like that? Would you purchase some specialty insurance for the job - if it is even available?

 

[DGT]

Locally we have no insurance available to cover any workmanship issues. You are supposed to be the expert at your chosen craft, therefore you are on your own if you make an error in the cleaning process. We spent a great deal of time inspecting every inch of that piece. Your hands are tied when you cannot take it out of the facility and into your own. We were very cautious with every step we made.

 

[Mardie]

Care to share which method or methods were used.

 

[XTREME1]

We clean a great room overlooking the ocean of chinese silk carpet carpet alone is over $40,000 and we do pull a rider on our insurance