In consultation with Minnesota Historical Society conservator, Bob Herskovitz, we recently cleaned and restrung this beautiful Zuni “squash blossom” necklace.
A gentle cleaning slurry of fine calcium carbonate powder was used to remove the tarnish and restore the luster to the handmade silver beads.
This necklace is part of the Cleora Helbing Collection of Native American Arts and Crafts. Miss Helbing and her work with the Bureau of Indian Affairs is an interesting story, but we’ll save that for another post.
– Posted by Ann
What a beautiful piece! I can’t wait to hear about its history.
I remember this necklace! My very first museum internship was at your museum working with the Helbing collection. I knew nothing about collections at the time but it was fun learning and reading through all the files.
Amy! Great to see you again! The work you did in the Helbing collection is still a model for internships and for our own work in that collection. We had a great series of lectures on it last year. We found one of the student artists from Alaska, now art professor emeritus, and brought him in for a great presentation. I’ll try post his piece as we learn how this blog business works…