Paper Conservation: Decisions & Compromises

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Fig. 4 Japanese paper and wheat starch paste were used to reinforce the most extensive insect damage and losses. The folios were then inlaid into a toned, hand-made paper of a similar thickness and colour to the paper of the manuscript to allow a safe and easy handling. The approach to both conservation and mounting of the manuscripts were decided after discussions with the curator of the Asian collection at the V&A , with a careful consideration of the importance of these early texts to followers of Jainism and a shared awareness of the risks posed to the original material by handling. Historically, the display of the Indian pictorial collection at the V&A has been centred around individual paintings rather than entire manuscripts, and so it seemed logical to inlay the folios in an appropriate paper, and mount them in standard sized window mounts. In order to save much-needed storage space and also for aesthetic reasons, it was decided to mount three folios in each mount, which has the additional benefit of helping the viewer to see that the folios belong to larger manuscripts. With this method, a manuscript can be viewed in its original sequence, while at the same time being protected from unnecessary handling that could lead to further damage and loss to the already deteriorated folios. The mounted manuscripts are then stored in Solander boxes in the Indian Study Room at the V&A and can now be used for both periodic display in the Nehru gallery of Indian art at the Museum, and for close study by scholars (Figure 4). Captions Fig. 1: Folio from an Uttaradhyayanasutra manuscript: King SreNika and the ascetic, showing the inlay method Opaque watercolour on paper; Cambay, Gujarat, about 1460; © Victoria and Albert Museum, London Fig. 2: Folio from a Kalpasutra manuscript: Neminatha’s birth (left) and his renunciation to become a monk on seeing the frightened animals about to be sacrificed for his wedding feast (right Opaque watercolour on paper Gujarat, India, early 16 th century © Victoria and Albert Museum, London Fig. 3: Folio from an Uttaradhyayanasutra manuscript: the story of king ISukara, detail showing verdigris damage Opaque watercolour on paper Cambay, Gujarat, about 1460 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London Fig. 4: Folios from an Uttaradhyayanasutra manuscript showing the mounting and storage methods used Opaque watercolour on paper Cambay, Gujarat, about 1460 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London References Potthast, A., Henniges, U., and Banik, G. Iron gall ink-induced corrosion of cellulose: aging, degradation and stabilization. Part 1: model paper studies, Cellulose, Vol.15, No. 6, Dec. 2008, pp. 849-859 Authors Michael Wheeler is a Freelance Conservator and specialist in the conservation of Indian art. He was formerly Senior Paper Conservator at the V&A. mikewathome2012@yahoo.com Nicholas Barnard is Curator, South and South-East Asia, Asian Department, Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, London SW7 2RL, U.K. n.barnard@vam.ac.uk Karine Bovagnet is Senior Paper Conservator at the Albertina Museum: Albertinaplatz 1 1010 Vienna, Austria k.bovagnet@albertina.at Richard Mulholland is Paper Conservator at the V&A: Paper, Books and Paintings Conservation, Conservation Department, Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, London SW7 2RL, U.K.; r.mulholland@vam.ac.uk ICOM-CC Graphic Documents Working Group Interim Meeting | Vienna 17 – 19 April 2013 104
The Microflora Inhabiting Leonardo da Vinci’s Self Portrait: a Fungal Role in Foxing Spots Guadalupe Piñar | Katja Sterflinger | Flavia Pinzari Department of Biotechnology, Vienna Institute of Bio Technology (VIBT) University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria ICRCPAL-Istituto Centrale per il Restauro e la Conservazione del Patrimonio Archivistico e Librario, Laboratorio di Biologia, Rome, Italy Introduction Leonardo da Vinci’s famous self portrait is made in red chalk on paper. It is housed at the Royal Library in Turin, Italy. The drawing is strongly affected by foxing spots. The damage presumably occurred between 1890 and 1950. The portrait has been recently brought to ICRCPAL (Rome) for scientific analyses. According to Corte et al. (2003) foxing is a modification of paper occurring in the form of brown, brown-reddish or yellowish spots, the origin of which has not yet been clearly explained. In fact, despite the extensive research that has been done in this field, no conclusive results exist to the cause of foxing. There are two different theories concerning its development: the biotic theory, according to which the stains are the result of the activity of micro-organisms (Choi 2007, and references therein) and the abiotic theory, entailing chemical phenomena such as oxidizing and/or heavy metals deposits (Cain and Miller 1982). In particular, the deterioration of paper has been linked to the presence of metals in the pulp, and paper yellowing/browning is supposed to be caused by cellulose oxidation catalysed by metals. There is moreover a quite clear relationship between the occurrence of these modifications and environmental conditions (Gallo and Pasquariello 1989). Recent investigations have studied the role of fungi in foxing by light and electron microscopy (Florian and Manning 2000). These studies found that in some cases the initial cause of foxing was a group of spores of conidia that had been deposited on the surface of the paper prior to printing and had germinated in situ during the slow drying of the paper. Arai et al. (1990) proposed the following process for the formation of foxing: absolute tonophilic fungi conidia and or ascospores attach to paper, germinate and grow their hyphae. The hyphae form colonies around dust particles. These fungi metabolize mainly malic acid, cellooligosaccharides and aminobutyric acid in the colonies. These components react chemically together on the materials at Aw 0.80 and 20-35°C forming brown products and oxidative reactions on paper that result in localised foxing spots. From old books and manuscripts showing the characteristic foxing discoloration more than 60 fungus cultures were identified by ordinary light microscopy and the most common encountered species are Eurotium, Aspergillus and Penicillium species. The brown-rusty spots that deface Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait have all the characteristics of foxing, and some of them show a blue-yellow fluorescence that is also typical of both biological and chemical foxing (Choi 2007). The knowledge of the nature of the stains is a question of great concern because future conservation treatments and actions towards the famous object would better be based on scientific data. Furthermore, the delicate object has been poorly studied from the “biological” point of view: only a couple of swab sampling undergoing culture-dependent techniques was performed between 1960 and 2000, and no significant results were obtained at that time. With the aim to address the problem and assess the current microbiological risk of the drawing, we performed a study on Leonardo da Vinci’s self portrait based on non-invasive sampling using diverse membrane filters and swabs, and a combination of SEM-EDS imaging culturing and molecular techniques. Methods Sampling One of the main problems encountered in the study of Leonardo da Vinci’s self portrait was the execution of the sampling. Clearly no micro fragments could be removed since this action may have caused further damage to the object or ICOM-CC Graphic Documents Working Group Interim Meeting | Vienna 17 – 19 April 2013 105
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Paper Conservation: Decisions & Com
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Content Lieve Watteeuw Introduction
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Michael Wheeler | Nicholas Barnard
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New Trends in Preservation in the D
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and monitoring against adverse envi
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Steve Hobaica, Patrick Loughney, Ma
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The Albums of Duke Charles de Croÿ
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Fig. 4: turning the supporting pape
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Fig. 2: Close-up of some of the los
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manuscript paper, the binding would
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Figure 2 partial sewing: the blue d
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Books in Exhibitions: History and A
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Fig. 4 Museum in London and the pre
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Risk and Safety of Illuminated Manu
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Fig. 2 Atlas, the Crown papers are
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Acknowledgments The authors would l
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Verdigris I: Compromises in Conserv
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Verdigris 2: Wet Chemical Treatment
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Integrated Modelling: The Demograph
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Fig. 3: The consequence of 50 insta
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Characterisation of Historical Pape
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pling is required, tide-lines are c
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Study of Phytate Chelating Treatmen
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Evaluation of stochiometric effects
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Practice and Progress in the Conser
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Fig. 1 Fig. 2 plex picture and prov
Page 54 and 55: Fig. 2: Coloured paper strips place
Page 56 and 57: the fire (on the other hand paper,
Page 58 and 59: inform decisions on conservation tr
Page 60 and 61: This paper summarizes what is known
Page 62 and 63: 2. Methods An interdisciplinary met
Page 64 and 65: Fig. 4: Dyed endpaper pasted at the
Page 66 and 67: Preservation of Architectural Drawi
Page 68 and 69: Notes 1 According Salvador Muñoz V
Page 70 and 71: course of time under the influence
Page 72 and 73: the curators in review of the treat
Page 74 and 75: cellulose powders with cellulose et
Page 76 and 77: Authors Xing Kung Liao Conservator
Page 78 and 79: Fig. 2: Our Railroad Workers and th
Page 80 and 81: The Restoration of Cartoons at the
Page 82 and 83: tation presumes that the works are
Page 84 and 85: To Remove or Retain? - Extensive In
Page 86 and 87: Fig. 4 repeated applications until
Page 88 and 89: The Migration of Hydroxy Propyl Cel
Page 90: tion issue allowed a visualisation
Page 93 and 94: Ethical Considerations Concerning t
Page 95 and 96: emoved with damp cotton swab. Then
Page 97 and 98: Conservation of a Book of Hours fro
Page 99 and 100: Fig. 4: Pigments movement and conse
Page 101 and 102: Notes 1 Brazilwood lake, lapis lazu
Page 103: pages, which would easily have torn
Page 107 and 108: Acknowledgments The authors would l
Page 109 and 110: Microorganisms in Books - First Res
Page 111 and 112: hyaline white mycelia on and in the
Page 113 and 114: Deconstructing the Reconstruction E
Page 115 and 116: Fig. 3: Poster after 2012 conservat
Page 117 and 118: Conservators’ Investigation of Ch
Page 119 and 120: had been used, may be false-positiv
Page 121 and 122: function will provide a holistic pi
Page 123 and 124: Fig. 2: Patriarchs of Chan Buddhism
Page 125 and 126: ing techniques, which build upon fu
Page 127 and 128: Applications of Image Processing So
Page 129 and 130: Fig. 3 Fig. 4 images in a single wi
Page 131 and 132: Analysing Deterioration Artifacts i
Page 133 and 134: Fig. 3 similarity maps. Similarity
Page 135 and 136: Strategy in the Case of a Wrecked P
Page 137 and 138: without preliminary consolidation.
Page 139 and 140: Fiber Optic Reflectance Spectroscop
Page 141 and 142: Fig. 3: 18 th century paper seal, i
Page 143 and 144: Fig. 3 Fig. 4 of responsibilities r
Page 145 and 146: Characterising the Origin of Carbon
Page 147: Fig. 3: Sampling depth for ATR spec
Page 150 and 151: Fig. 2: Filmoplast® tape attached
Page 152 and 153: Pluchart, F. 1971. Pop Art Et Cie.
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Fig. 3: The reverse of left screen
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porting the reverse of severe creas
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Paper Conservation: Decisions & Compromises

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