In addition to a number of intact ceramic and glass objects recovered from Beauvoir after Hurricane Katrina, thousands of ceramic and glass fragments were recovered. These fragments were numbered, catalogued, and placed within small finds boxes that are currently being housed at storage facilities. Fragments were sorted by pattern and the curator was consulted regarding which pieces were priority items. The dining set used by Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson before the Civil War is the most completely recovered of these high priority items from the fragments.
Kerith, a summer intern from New York University, began working on this set of fragments. When she began piecing them together, she found the set consisted of 3 dinner plates, 5 soup bowls and the soup tureen with lid. All of these objects were completely fragmentary. Around 30-95% of the bowls and plates were recovered and <40% of the soup tureen and lid were recovered. Since many of pieces in this set have been nearly completely recovered, a complete restoration of all the recovered plates and bowls will be possible (a rarity among the objects found within the recovered fragments). The work required to stabilize and repair these ceramic objects, includes the removal of soluble salts, removal of organic and iron staining, moderate to major structural repair, including filling looses for missing pieces.
Check Kerith’s page to see her progess on this work. |
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