Albumen print mounts

I am a French photography conservator in private practice.

In my lab, I have to do a treatment on a set of 29 albumen papers
mounted on boards. The photographs are in a good state, but the
boards are partially delaminated on one edge. The delaminations are
severe, probably due to significant humidity. It seems that the
boards were originally of good quality They are thin, made of 4
sheets of paper. The top and back is quite smooth. Now the paper is
hydrolyzed, with marks of mold (dry).

The point is to consolidate the boards. We can't eliminate them, as
the museum doesn't want to. We didn't want to use methylcellulose,
to avoid have "frizzling" of the boards, so we use some Klucel G (8%
in ethanol). that works but sill have some very significant
frizzling of the board. After that, we decided just to consolidate
the edge of the corners-- that seems less fragile than the
middle--and to "block" the mounting boards in the mat (there is
nothing on the verso). We would like to ask if somebody has a better
idea to treat this problem.

Above all, we now have to find a way to re-flatten the boards that
have been treated. For the moment they are in the press, under 60
kilograms of weight. (We don't have a percussion press that could
eventually radically treat the problem).

Gwenola Furic
Conservation-restauration du patrimoine photographique
29 rue du Paradet
35600 Redon
+33 9 63 42 22 33
+33 6 13 57 68 25


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 25:22
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