Paper Conservation: Decisions & Compromises

emoved with damp cotton swab. Then the paper
tears were mended and the paper losses were
infilled.
The flexibility of plants changed dramatically
due to the change of humidity and was expected
to get low again during drying under pressure.
The sheets were then pressed under a soft layer
of felt, which gave good results for most of the
sheets. The ones for which this method didn’t
work well were put in the press, between several
layers of Whatman blotting paper sheets, after
humidification in Gore-Tex®.
After flattening the sheets it was possible to
start the process of matching. The first attempt
was to match on a particular page the plants
that used to lie on its surface in the area of the
spine. If some plant didn’t match any description
or trace of plant on the page, the conservator
searched for the right place on the other sheets.
All the matches and the fragments that were
difficult to identify were photographed (Fig. 2).
The matching process was reviewed with ethnobotany
professor Lukasz Luczaj from University
of Rzeszów. This cooperation made it possible
to match about 90% of specimens. The rest was
uncertain due to the lack of description or the
condition of the specimen remains.
The specimens that were not identified and/
or remained loose were put together in the buffered
paper envelope and treated as a separate
attachment to the item.
The plants were mounted onto the paper
using the original white paper strips and rice
starch paste. If the paper strips were not sufficient
for that purpose, the attachment was supported
with light Japanese tissue, died greenish
matching the colour of the paper support (Fig.
3, 4). If the large leaves or petals were detaching
from the sheet, they were pasted with a spot of
rice starch paste onto the sheet.
The block of the album was resewn. The binding
and the woodblock printed paper were reconstructed.
The herbarium was again documented after
the treatment, page by page.
Fig. 3: Specimen mounting supported with dyed Japanese tissue.
Conclusions
The conservation of the Museum of Agriculture’s
herbarium was a challenging and demanding
task. It required careful observation all the time
and reevaluation of methods commonly used in
paper conservation. During the treatment both
conservator and ethnobotanist were seeking for
the most satisfying solution that is safe for the
plant material and at the same time enables
handling and exhibiting the item. In addition
the herbarium was intended to be a subject of
further scientific research. The idea to return
the plants to their places seemed to be the best
Fig. 4: Page 15 after treatment.
ICOM-CC Graphic Documents Working Group Interim Meeting | Vienna 17 – 19 April 2013
95