AIC's 47th Annual Meeting

Blue pigments were sometimes added during the manufacture of white papers in the nineteenth century to optically counteract yellowing. These blue pigments can be found as dispersed inclusions in the paper substrates of salted paper prints from the 1840’s and 1850’s. French, Italian and British salted paper prints from the Metropolitan Museum of Art will be studied. Non-invasive analytical methods to characterize the pigments will include optical microscopy, Raman spectroscopy and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy. Historical references about paper making and salted paper print materials in addition to recent photograph and paper conservation literature will be consulted.