|
Article |
|
||||||||
Protein Chemistry of Albumen Photographs
|
||||||||||
| The use of albumen as a tradition artist’s material is long and well established. Cennino Cennini in his Il Libro del’ Arte mentions the use of egg white or "glair" as a binder for pigments and as a varnish. As early photographers sought a suitable medium for the fabrication of prints and negatives, the use of egg white became inevitable. The outstanding result of this initial experimentation is the albumen print. In general, the term albumen refers to hen’s egg white. In the egg, albumen is a relatively pure mixture of numerous proteins dispersed in water. By far, the protein component accounts for the bulk of the solids in albumen. As the water component dries off during albumen paper manufacture, the resulting surface coating is almost entirely protein. After aging, this layer is notably susceptible to a characteristic discoloration and cracking. As a first step towards understanding the properties and degradation behavior of albumen photographs, this paper presents an overview of the involved proteins and their chemistry. | ||||||||||
|
Full text
is online.
Topics in Photographic Conservation is published by the Photographic Materials Group of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC). Copies can be purchased from the AIC, tel. 202 452-9545. Revised: November 29, 2004. |
