Bleached paper

Vanessa Hardy <vhardy [at] sfpl__org> writes

>We have a copy of what appears to be the 1570 edition of Stultifera
>Navis ...
>...
>>...  I have not seen
>sixteenth-century paper this fragile. Could this be the result of
>bleach?  (The book also has a chemical smell, and the paper is oddly
>yellowed.) What bleach would have been used in the 1880's? Will the
>paper continue to deteriorate? Is it possible to treat? (BTW, the
>book is in an elaborate binding.)

The book described by Vanessa Hardy sounds very similar to a 1560s
copy of a Tyndale Bible we have in the collection here at Ohio
State.  Some may recall a posting on the DistList last year from
Ashley Bartman, a student assistant here in Conservation, who is
investigating the yellow-stained paper in the bible (as well as the
history of the book's former owners) as her senior thesis project.
So far various microscopy results seem to indicate some kind of
varnish.  The obvious question "why?" is still largely unanswered,
although we suspect it may have been an effort to preserve/protect
the paper.

We hadn't considered that the yellowing had anything to do with
bleaching, and the paper, though a little stiff from the coating, is
not brittle. This paper has obviously--brushstrokes are
visible--been coated with a (now slightly glossy) liquid substance
that was, or turned, yellow. There are many other intriguing
similarities, however, including the age, the fact that it's an
English translation (unauthorized), it had been re-bound with
facsimile title page, and when last re-bound (probably early 19th
century) a number of blank pages were added front and back.

This doesn't address Vanessa's questions, but it would be
interesting to compare these volumes a little more closely, along
with any other similar cases anyone comes up with.  I would be happy
to share photos of our book, and would be interested in seeing
images of similar books/paper.

Harry Campbell
Conservator
The Ohio State University Libraries
138 Tech Center
1165 Kinnear Rd.
Columbus, OH 43212
614-292-9690
Fax: 614-292-5214


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 24:50
                    Distributed: Monday, May 2, 2011
                       Message Id: cdl-24-50-005
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