Scene 17 – Baluxie Shell Mounds

Today we have a special guest post by Claire Walker, Assistant Painting Conservator at the Saint Louis Art Museum.

One of the questions we often receive from visitors is “What happened to #17?”  This scene depicting the Baluxie Shell Mounds has substantially more damage than the other scenes.  As the team was rolling the panorama from scene 14 to 18, I was able to get my first close look at scene 17.  The area of significant damage began and ended neatly at vertical seams about a quarter of the way into scenes 17 and 18, so this damage was localized not to the scene but to this one panel of fabric.
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