Wallpaper

The following is posted on behalf of Michal Durovic

    We are beginning to deal with conservation of wallpapers. At
    present our student conserves fragment of wallpaper (2 x 3m),
    which was damaged by last year flood in Prague. Main problem of
    this work is wallpaper's colour layer and its consolidation.
    Composition of this layer is:

        white colour (lead white)
        red colour (mixture of red organic lake, red ochre and lead
            white)
        yellow colour (mixture of yellow ochre and lead white)
        gilding (powder "bronze"--90% Cu and 10% Zn).

    Protein glue or oil was used as binder. The colour layer is
    fragile and powder of pigments (mainly of lead white) appears.

    Therefore we proposed the following procedure: first
    consolidation by 1% solution of Tylose MH 50
    (methyl-hydroxypropylcellulose) in 80% ethyl alcohol and second
    consolidation by 0,5% solution of Tylose MH 300 in 80% ethyl
    alcohol.

    Another problem is retouching. Is retouching usually accepted in
    wallpaper conservation?

    Any opinions to proposed procedure and information about this
    topic (consolidation of colour layer on wallpapers and
    retouching) would be highly appreciated.

    Dr. ing. Michal Durovic
    Head of Preservation Department
    State Central Archives in Prague
    Archivni 4, 149 01 Prague 4, Czech Republic
    Fax: +42 974847291
    sua10 [at] mvcr__cz


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 17:14
                   Distributed: Friday, July 25, 2003
                       Message Id: cdl-17-14-011
                                  ***