Zebra Hair-on Rug nearly 50 years old - very dry, creases and cracked
Dear Roger,
I have read some items about your work on the Internet.
A few months ago we were visited by a couple whom we had met through the local vintage-car club. They saw that we have in our buildings the skin of a cougar and various other animal-parts and they offered me the skin of a zebra that they had had for many years. They told me the skin was very dry as it had been in the roof of their house for many years; nevertheless, I accepted their kind offer.
When my friend delivered the skin to me he also brought the paper export licence – it is dated September 1971, so the skin is nearly 50 years old (incidentally, the paper licence, like the zebra-skin, is folded, dry and split!). He told me that, long ago, he had been working in Uganda and had been in a supervisory capacity when the animal had been culled. I think that he was given the skin as a kind of leaving present. I believe, however, that it was too big to display in any of the houses that he and his wife have lived in, so they folded it up and stored it in a dry place whenever they moved house.
I don’t know if the skin has ever been treated in any way, other than, fairly soon after the skinning of the animal, and then the removal of flesh, etc., some simple stitching of cut-lines and glueing of patches over quite a few smallish holes.
I believe that, in Canada, you still use Imperial units of measurement, so I’ll uses inches:
(a) Tip of nose to tip of tail – 128”.
(b) Across front legs laid flat – 88”.
(c) Bulk of body(ignoring head, neck and legs) – 78” x 59”.
Do you think that the skin is too far gone to be rehabilitated, or is it feasible to treat the suede side with your fatliquor, etc. that would soften the skin to the extent that would allow me to flatten it and remove the creases caused by the folding? I might then be able to repair the cracked areas by glueing patches over them on the suede side.
I attach a couple of photographs.
Yours,
Dr David Pike.
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