dk nkf - Nordisk Konservatorforbund Danmark

to identify the period in which one could expect to find
a higher incidence of canvases with a strong potential
for shrinkage. The initial British export ban of the
relevant technology and Danish protectionist customs
regulations affected the import of foreign linen as
well as yarns for part of the 19 th century. This means
that the occurrence of industrially produced canvases
in Denmark would hypothetically show a delay in
date, compared for instance to British equivalents.
An investigation of paintings in the collections of
Aarhus Kunstmuseum and Statens Museum for Kunst,
produced throughout the 19 th century, does indeed seem
to corroborate this hypothesis (see below) showing an
occurrence of tenting in Danish paintings delimited
to the last two thirds of the century. An awareness of
this is of course important when assessing a given
19 th century painting canvas in terms of its potential
response to treatment.
The industrialisation of canvas
production in Denmark
In the second half of the 18 th century and during
the 19 th century the spinning of yarn and weaving
of textiles slowly changed from hand to machine
production. England was one of the first countries to
take up the change, while Denmark more reluctantly
followed.
Cotton and short wool fibres were the easiest fibres
to spin mechanically. This is due to their elasticity
and relatively short length compared to flax and
hemp strands. The mechanisation started 1764 with
the invention by James Hargreaves of the hand
driven Spinning Jenny, which made it possible for
one person to spin 16 spindles at a time. In 1769
this was followed by the water-driven Spinning
Frame invented by Richard Arkwright, a machine
that consisted of rollers turning at different speed,
which made it possible to spin stronger cotton yarns
that could be used as warp yarns.
The change from hand to machine spinning of flax
was a much longer process due to problems with the
long stiff fibre strands and their natural gum content.
This was no problem for the hand spinner, who often
used saliva in the process. This softened the gum and
made it easy for the strands to slide between each
other, thus it was possible to spin flax yarns in all
possible qualities. In the beginning it was only possible
to machine spin coarse yarns that could be used for
sail cloths and coarse canvas. The first attempts dates
back to around 1790, where a method for dry spinning
flax was patented in England. Later wet spinning was
introduced, something that made it possible to spin
flax in thin and shinny qualities that were usable for
fine linen. It was a French engineer Philippe de Girard,
who in 1810 took out a patent for the invention that
introduced a soaking of the flax fibres in hot alkaline
solution prior to spinning. In 1814 the inventions were
patented in England, but probably not used very much.
James Kay (1825) is normally the person credited for
inventing the wet spinning of flax. According to his
method the flax strand were soaked in cold water for 6
hours prior to spinning. Later, hot water came into use
for wet spinning of flax.
In Denmark the policy was to protect and nurse the
household production as late as into the 1820s. It
was not until 1843 that the first spinning mill in
Denmark was established at Svanholm, sponsored
by the government who had realized that power
spinning was the way forward. But the factory was
greeted with great suspicion, as the quality of its
products was claimed to be too poor and the yarns
too coarse. By general agreement only hand spun
flax could make fine yarns due to the saliva used in
the spinning process [7]. The fact remains that the
factory closed again in 1851.
According to the contemporary writer O.J. Rawert
(1844) the change from hand to machine spinning
of flax fibres had a significant effect on the resulting
yarn and canvas: not only were the dry spun yarns
more frayed and contaminated with remains of tow.
They also had less actual substance in the threads, and
canvas woven of these yarns would absorb 30% more
water than canvas woven of yarns spun by hand [8].
Nonetheless, the machine-spun flax did become more
popular in Denmark during the 1840s and 50s and
an increasing amount of spun flax and linen fabrics
was imported. In the period 1837-1855 the import of
linen goods quadrupled while the import of spun flax
rose by 20 times. The import of unhackled flax fell
accordingly, showing how the domestic preparation
and spinning of flax was being superseded [9]. In the
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