Paper Conservation: Decisions & Compromises

The Albums of Duke Charles de Croÿ: Consolidation and Modified
Re-housing of Double-sided Miniatures on Parchment in Bound Volumes
Uta Landwehr | Junko Sonderegger
Austrian National Library, Conservation Department, Vienna, Austria
The ongoing conservation project of the so-called
Croÿ-albums, Codices Miniati 49 and 50, part of
the collection of Manuscripts and Rare Books at
the Austrian National Library, involved an unusually
wide range of possibilities and several levels
of decisions. The large number and the size of
the objects to be treated multiply the consequences
of choices.
The albums make up a total of 15 Baroque red
leather bindings which contain a total of 423
parchments measuring from 51,0 to 54,0 cm by
38,0 to 40,5 cm. The skins were painted on both
sides, thus acting as supports for 846 gouache
paintings. These pieces are a portion of an original
collection of reportedly about 2500 objects
assembled in 23 volumes. They were commissioned
by Duke Charles de Croÿ d´Arschot (1560
– 1612) during the Spanish regency of the Southern
Netherlands and depict views of those territories
which enclose areas of today’s Belgium,
Northern France and the Netherlands. They were
executed between 1590 and 1611 by the artist
Adrien de Montigny (d.1615) and his workshop
after detailed land registers.
The large collection was sold and thus dispersed
after Duke Charles de Croÿ’s death. Today
paintings are in the collections of various European
institutions and private owners. The pieces
from the Viennese Croÿ-Albums were acquired
by Duke Charles of Lothringen (1712 – 1780); it is
assumed that he bought the paintings at three
auctions. They were incorporated into the imperial
collections and the royal geographer, Abbé
Palquois de Reigniere, arranged the order of the
parchments after 1753. The sheets were adhered
to paper mats with animal glue. These were
bound into albums with alternating supporting
pages of rag paper. Today we consider these
Baroque volumes containing the parchments as
historic, but not original since they are not the
first presentation of the pieces.
The albums reveal some conservation history:
in the mid-1970s the parchments were removed
Fig. 1: parchment sliding out of polyester pocket, adhesive
tape lost in the tail area
from the books because of severe cockling and
heavily-flaking pigments due to material tensions
and friction. The paper frames were cut
off leaving a fold about 4 cm wide in the book.
After removing the parchments from the paper
frames, conservation treatment consisted of
consolidating the paint layer. Parchment glue
was sprayed over the surface several times after
pre-treating the sheets with ethanol. The skins
were flattened after humidifying and stretching.
Eventually the individual sheets were placed
into transparent polyester pockets which were
attached onto the remaining folds with synthetic
adhesive. The pockets, open at the top and bottom,
were partially secured with transparent
pressure sensitive tape, allowing some air circulation.
Additional slits were cut into the fore - edge
of the pockets to allow further air exchange.
ICOM-CC Graphic Documents Working Group Interim Meeting | Vienna 17 – 19 April 2013
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