From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 12/19/02-08:55:41 PM Z
On Wed, 18 Dec 2002, David Hosten wrote:
> I would like to know if anyone has tried toning Albumen prints with
> Platinum or Palladium toner.
> Isn't Albumen a real headache from a permanence perspective? All the old
> stuff I've seen in galleries is faded and yellowed.
> Would toning with platinum/palladium solution add a substantial degree
> of permanence to the print? Like it might with Kallitype??.. if all I
> have read from R. Sullivan and P. Marshall on Kallitype permanence and
> toning is correct...
>
> If the answer is in the next issue of Post Factory - Judy please step in.
Ah, "an" answer is rarely "the" answer because everything has so many
conditions, opinions & variables, but here are "some" answers:
As for the permanency of albumen, I recently purchased an old album
(present to myself for surviving -- almost -- G4 attack). I assume that
many (most?) of the mounted portraits are albumen, covering a period of
-- judging by clothing and hairdo's -- probably 60 or so years. Many,
many, a surprising number, look as rich as the day they were made. Or as
rich as one might expect for the day they were made. Others (perhaps up to
a third) show varying degrees of fade. The difference I assume is in
processing.
I myself am not an albumen maven, tho I have read all the current
literature (which BTW SKIRTS the permanency issue). I have palladium
toned kallitype (which will also be covered in the issue, and does make a
gorgeous color), but the folks doing the albumen article are gold toning.
My impression (from "the literature") is that gold toning was the norm. I
don't think any "professional" albumen was done without some added toning
-- tho I assume there are folks on this list who will correct me if I'm
wrong.
Two more things: the Stanford University web site has, I understand, all
the current -- and back, back all the way to The Silver Sunbeam,
literature on albumen, so you can see what they say.
And the other thing, The Album: I was compelled to buy it for the 14
chromolithograph pages.... those fancy borders...exquisite, enchanting, to
swoon from -- scenes, geometrics, decorations, cartouches, animals ( as I
recall, even a cow !), flowers in sprays and bunches -- perfect expression
of period style, also totally post-modern. Imagine the page as a field,
the drawn flowers in front, the oval cutout for the photo portrait, and at
top a "painting" in a gold frame on the "wall" behind the sitter or in
the sky of the field, as you choose, with a pastoral "painting" drawn in
the frame.
My own experience with palladium toning of kalli, for what it's worth, was
that it was easy and beautiful. It's also of course much cheaper than
straight palladium printing, because it takes less of the metal (only
*coating* the particles rather than *being* the particules) and you only
tone the keepers.
J.
> I've been reading this list for some time now, and have enjoyed much of
> the vigorous discussion and great ideas that keep turning up.
> Thanks
> David Hosten
>
>
>
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