African Pygmy door Table

You might try a mixture of denatured alcohol and brush cleaner.

-- My favorite piece is my last one, my best piece is my next one.

wow! what a find. I’d approach that as carefully as I could – if I dared. might be worth looking up some museum cleaning/preservation methods? any chemical stripper (and I’ve had lots of luck with the green ones) still would need a bit of scraping – even if you resorted to dental tools and small scrapers, chisels or even pallet knives to get into the nooks and crannies.

-- I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso -- http://blanchardcreative.etsy.com -- http://snbcreative.wordpress.com/

go to www.ravenstonetile.com and send a email to Laura Reutter. She is founder of Ravenstone tile. She has worked in a museum as a antique restorer. She may give you sound advice or poit you to the right person or website.

-- work from your heart and your spirit will live forever

I think I’d just try rubbing it with linseed oil, & mineral spirits, or mineral oil.

I’d hate to lose any of the patina,

-- -** You are never to old to set another goal or to dream a new dream ****************** Dick, & Barb Cain, Hibbing, MN. http://www.woodcarvingillustrated.com/gallery/member.php?uid=3627&protype=1

One of my other hobbies is collecting ethnic art, including african. Based on my experience , I would be careful removing any of the “dirt” as it was likely added during the initial finishing process and you will expose bare, unfinished wood when you remove it.

This looks like a Dogon trade piece – a granary door – and, in order to simulate age, the craftsman may have mixed in sand during the dye process.

-- Shawn, I ask in order to learn

Hi
Very close, live in the same – so maybe they share artisans. I am no expert.
My only counter point is when looking really closely you can see that the dark “dirt” layer is above a color layer – I see Red / Orange and some yellow areas. At first I thought maybe clay coloring but is definitely some form of pigmentation / stain.

I came from a guest house the “Marriage house” (look closely at the carvings), maybe it was a granary at some point.

Ryan

Hi James,very nice old peace. You can use a moisture in equal parts of terebentine, alcohol 96º and ammonia, for cleaning, use steel wool (nº 0000), after clean the rest with a mop with alcohol. For finishing, use shellac and wax. I was use this methode to cleaning this peace from India. Enjoy the work.

-- Pedro Rodrigues da Costa, Sintra, Portugal