The Repair of a Straw Box

An ornamental box, selected for the InForm exhibition, was damaged and missing a side panel from the lid. The box is decorated in straw marquetry, a craft popularised in the 17^th century by European makers used to working in isolation such as nuns, monks and convicts. The best way to repair the lid required me to learn these straw marquetry skills while in isolation during Covid lockdown.  

Looking closely at the object revealed the technical processes needed to recreate the missing section. Dyed stalks of straw were flattened and cut, arranged into a simple pattern, then glued and pressed to paper. The straw covered paper was then cut to the required dimensions and adhered to the sides of the box. These panels were skillfully arranged to produce a more complex pattern utilising both colour and the reflective grain of the straw stalk.

The straw had to be worked flat using a bone comb to crush and scrape a stalk of inner pith, reducing ridges to create a fine pliable ribbon. Matching the repair straw to the width, angle and colour of the original was not straightforward. Each repair straw was selected first by colour then scalpel cut with precision to match width variations of the original. The rest of the pattern would not match if a preceding strip was cut slightly too thickly or thinly.  I had assumed the straw was dyed naturally until I opened the box to reveal two smaller boxes untouched by light. These straws of the inner boxes were bright aniline type colours. This quality enabled greater insight into the object. The first mass produced aniline dye, Perkin’s Mauve, was discovered in 1856 - so the object was not as old as I first thought.

Dyed straw is very light sensitive, and the boxes reveal varying degrees of photo-degradation (light damage) due to uneven and long-term exposure to light. I colour-matched the repair straw to mimic the aged, faded straw.  The closest colour match was achieved with tannins, readily available as tea from the kitchen. The replica panel is a fully removable insert, produced especially for the exhibition as a technical insight into straw-craft.