Lisa Duncan, Art Conservator, LLC specializes in the treatment of damaged photographic materials and works on paper. Treatment decisions follow the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC) Code of Ethics and Guidelines For Practice. For further information about AIC and/ or to read the Code of Ethics please visit http://www.conservation-us.org/
Call to schedule an appointment. The initial consultation is free. If you decide to leave your item with Lisa Duncan, Art Conservator, LLC you will receive a proposal for treatment within six weeks and be charged a non-refundable fee. The proposal and cost estimate for treatment will be sent to you for permission to continue. Treatments can range from minor to major depending on the extent of damage.
Recent Projects:
These are before and after treatment photographs for a handpainted convex photograph that I treated at Heugh-Edmondson Conservation Services, LLC. It dates to about 1920 and is called a convex photograph because it is shaped like a lens. It had been crushed and split into four large pieces and several smaller pieces were missing. It appeared that it had been glued back together at one time because there was adhesive residue along the tears, but had split again. The varnish coating had yellowed significantly. During treatment, the photograph was unmounted from its cardboard mount and the varnish removed. The mount and photograph were washed to remove soluble degradation products and then mended. The adhesive residue was reduced. Areas of loss were filled with new archival paper. All the cracks and losses were reintegrated by inpainting with watercolor. The image was coated overall with an acrylic coating to protect it from damage in the future.
I treated this panorama during my second year at the Winterthur/ University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation. It was signed in the bottom corner by the photographer and is dated 1920. The panorama was tightly rolled and a corner was detached. There were tears at the edges and a piece was lost along the right edge. It was grimy and needed to be surface cleaned. Unrolling these photographs is tricky. It is not recommended to unroll them without help from a photograph conservator. This particular panorama was unrolled in a humidity chamber and then flattened. It was surface cleaned using erasers and damp swabs. The detached corner piece was reattached and tears were mended. The area of loss was filled with a digital reproduction that matched the tone and sheen of the surrounding image. Areas of loss were inpainted with watercolor.
This is a before and after treatment of a tintype. The tintype was a popular form of portraiture in America during the Civil War era. It was invented in America in 1856. The tintype is a wet plate collodion process made on a piece of Japanned iron, not tin as the name would imply. This particular tintype was put in a decorative case. As often happens overtime with these cases, the hinge had broken and the top was detached from the bottom. Another significant treatment issue was that the cover glass, located directly over the photograph, was deteriorating.
It is called “glass disease” and is an inherent problem with cased photographs. The deterioration is caused when moisture builds up between the photograph and cover glass and causes the glass to fog and weep. I have attached a detail of the photograph and glass so that you can see the problem more clearly. The glass is actually weeping and liquid that is VERY alkaline is forming on the surface of the glass. If the glass is not cleaned or replaced the liquid will fall onto the surface of the photograph and permanently etch it. If you see this phenomenon on items in your collection call a conservator. These images are sealed inside a complicated image package of photograph, glass, brass mat, and brass preserver. Do not attempt to break the seal unless you are knowledgeable about the construction of cased objects.
During treatment, The photograph was lightly brushed and the glass cleaned and flipped so that the deteriorated side was outside. The package was resealed with new tape. The case hinge was repaired with a new toned Japanese paper hinge and certain damage to the case was inpainted with watercolor.
CAUTION: These synopses of treatment are meant to inform the reader on what a conservator can do. They are not meant as a how-to for repairing images. In all circumstances consult a conservator instead of attempting to treat objects yourself.