Paper Conservation: Decisions & Compromises

Ethical Considerations Concerning the Conservation and Restoration
of a Herbarium from the 19 th Century
Magdalena Grenda
Warsaw Rising Museum, Warsaw, Poland
Fig. 1: Page 15 before treatment.
Introduction
After two years of efforts to get financial support,
the Reverend Krzysztof Kluk Museum of Agriculture
in Ciechanowiec ordered the conservation
of a herbarium from their collection. The artifact’s
history and origin were little known, and
the author of the herbarium was anonymous.
The curator wanted to submit the item for historical
botanist research but was afraid of making it
accessible for anybody due to its very poor condition.
There was a clue for dating hidden in the
paper: a watermark with the date 1816. The style
of the Linnaean system for taxonomy assignment
used in the herbarium suggested it was created
before 1850 1 . Nevertheless, these were only mere
pieces of information concerning the history of
the artifact and the owner was interested in further
research. The conservation treatment was
intended to enable safe handling and submission
of the item for future examination.
Condition of the item
The herbarium has the form of an album and is a
compilation of various types of plant specimens,
arranged on large sheets of a greenish laid paper.
The sheets are sewn on four rigid cords, bound
in cardboard binding with a woodblock printed
paper. On every page, 4 to 10 specimens, are located
irregularly, most of them have short handwritten
descriptions. Particular specimens have
longer specifications containing Polish and Latin
names, taxonomy assignment and some notes on
usage, some of which are very colorful. The specimens
are attached to the paper using narrow
strips of white laid paper. The larger leaves and
petals were pasted to the paper support.
The herbarium was seriously damaged prior
to conservation treatment. Severe damages were
found on almost all the elements of the item:
only half of the front cover remained; the construction
of the whole block was dismantled;
the covers’ cardboard was spongy and stratified
and there were a lot of losses in the outer layers
of the paper. The remains of woodblock printed
paper showed heavy discoloration and the pattern
was hardly visible. The spine lost its proper
shape. The paper sheets were torn at the edges,
were creased and spongy. There were a lot of
brown stains in the paper, mostly repeating the
shape of the plants, which is probably the effect
of poisoning the plants done in order to repel
pests.
However bad the condition of the paper part
of the item, the most serious problem concerned
the specimens. The majority of plants had fallen
off their places and moved to the area of the
spine which caused damages to brittle plants.
The damages were of different extent, from little
cracks to severe breakages or even crushing. Nevertheless,
still a lot of specimens remained in
one piece, yet out of the intended place (Fig. 1).
The plants were brittle, often incomplete,
partially crumbled and a lot of specimens swung
when attached at one point to the sheet.
Issues taken into consideration and
conservation planning
Any handling was actually risky and might cause
further damages or loss of plant material. The
main goal of the conservation of such an item
ICOM-CC Graphic Documents Working Group Interim Meeting | Vienna 17 – 19 April 2013
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