In our collection, for more than a hundred years,
we have fragments of the funerary robe and mitre of King Henry VI
who was a German King but who became King of Sicily when he married the daughter of
King Roger.
This textile came to me because it's planned to be included in the Sicily exhibition
They're 12th Century textiles and they're part of his mitre which was worn on his head
so you can see here a diagram of what the headpiece would have looked like,
there would of been a crown piece here
and the two pieces dangling down the back
and that's what you can see here.
It's his funerary robe and mitre that were actually found in his tomb
that is still in the cathedral of Palermo
but it was opened in the 18th century
and as was very common then; the clothes, the robes were taken out
and were distributed among the most famous collectors of the time.
And after a while some of these pieces came to the British Museum.
It was in a very bad state, even when it came to us it was already in a very bad state
because it had been entombed for several centuries
and through different conditions,
moisture but also actual bodily fluids,
it had been damaged quite a lot.
So to do this exhibition gave us another opportunity to re-conserve it
So our conservators, especially Anna
worked tirelessly to piece together the mitre back again
so that visitors can understand what it originally looked like.
We thought possibly at the beginning
that it might just be a question of fairly simple re-mounting.
It was in quite an old, what we call a pressure mount before
which means that it was lying on this board
and a piece of perspex was on top
and the perspex was clipped around the sides and it held it in place.
Although it hadn't held it that well because the small pieces had moved around,
as you can see it's in quite a poor condition.
So what I had to do was have a look at this textile, think about re-mounting
and actually as I was examining it I realised that the pieces were in the wrong position
so we've got this central ribbon which runs down the length of the lappets...
which have alternating lions and eagles inside the roundels.
and actually, they don't alternate as it is at the moment.
So what this has turned into has been a question of me really examining what remains
and trying to figure out where the pieces actually go.
What it represents is the art of textile that emerged on Sicily.
Sicily was very famous for embroidery during the Arab period,
but when the Normans conquered it they wanted to become more successful in it
so Roger actually kidnapped, lets say imported Byzantine weavers to the island,
so from that moment onwards, they could weave their own textiles.
What the fragment of the robe actually represents
is this combination of styles that we then start finding on the island.
The actual decoration pattern,
which is a very repetitive pattern of different animals is very Western,
it's Byzantine and Western.
But the actual embroidery style and even the weaving style is still very Islamic,
so its that combination of styles that emerges on Sicily.
I've spent a lot of time looking through the microscope
to try and see any features that can help me show the positioning of the different pieces
when I reposition them.
So for example stitch holes, any stitching.
So what I did was photograph the textile,
almost blown up to the proper size, so that I could use those images.
So what I was able to do with my photocopies was cut them up,
I've taken out the bits that I think are possibly in the wrong position
and moved them around and worked out where they go.
Having worked out the new position of all the fragments
according to my diagrams,
I made a fabric covered board,
and very carefully transferred the pieces on to the new board
into the position that they should in fact be in.
It was a difficult process because obviously the pieces are extremely fragile.
So the way that I am going to secure these on to the board
so that they can then be put on display safely
is to use nylon net over the top of the fragments.
And what we do is dye the nylon net to the colour we need
and lay it over the top.
And I can stitch all around the fragment and it holds it in place
and doesn't actually mean I've stitched into the fragment at all.
and it's a very reversible way of securing a textile which has got lots of holes in it.
And once the nylon net is secured over the top of the fragments,
you don't really see the net, but you do see the textile beneath.