Department Chair

Patrick Ravines

Date of Award

8-2020

Access Control

Open Access

Degree Name

Art Conservation, M.A., C.A.S.

Department

Art Conservation Department

Advisor

Jonathan Thornton

Advisor

Jiuan Jiuan Chen

Department Home page

https://artconservation.buffalostate.edu/

Abstract

Stereo viewing captured the Victorian imagination with a shocking intensity. It infiltrated all levels of society, changed the manner in which scientists and philosophers understood human perception, and contributed to medicine and entertainment in ways we are still discovering today. Though it is largely considered a toy, the context for the machine at the center of this study is broad, complex, and has led to an unending and ongoing series of questions.

The Alexander Becker’s “sweetheart stereocard viewer arrived without documentation or purchase information. It had been in the owner’s family for over thirty years, twenty-five of which it spent broken in a closet. The mechanism was profoundly broken and the machine could not display its fully loaded stereocard deck. Since, in the case of this object, function is as important as its material stabilization, a treatment that did not include operational repair would not have met all the object’s needs. Accordingly, in addition to the veneer repairs, the internal belt was reinforced and the mechanism repaired. The treatment was successful. The object was returned to functional and aesthetic integrity.

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