From: Richard Sullivan (richsul@earthlink.net)
Date: 03/21/02-09:25:48 AM Z
As has been stated here in this discussion several times a lot depends on
the nature of the print itself. Back in the 70's my wife Melody Bostick
bought a 16x20 frame in an antique store. It cost $15.00. It had a "print"
in it and the glass was broken. The frame and print had obviously been in a
home with a smoker or spent many years next to a coal fire plant of some
sort as it was brown and even had an oily surface to it. She had suspected
the print was important and knew it was photographic and she didn't think
it was a silver print. Of course we were interested in the "print" and not
the "frame" but we didn't make a lot of noise about the print in front of
the shop owner. Wwe just talked about the lovely frame.
When we got it home I took out the print and found it was "bound into a mat
with the front glued down to the print. Sigh...
I suspected it was a platinum and since it was pretty much worthless in
the state it was in I got out a big tray and filled it with cool water and
put the mat and print in. I suspected the glue was library paste. It was,
and in a half hour the mat floated free of the print. The print was still
oily ugly brown.
Ok, still worthless so I put in some cool water and put in a few
tablespoons of Ivory liquid dish washing soap. (In my days as an
engineering technician we used Ivory Liquid in the first stage of cleaning
diffraction gratings as per the instructions of 3M Corp who made them, only
Ivory at that time left no residue! I figured if it was good enough for a
10,000 dollar grating ok.)
The brown yuk floated off and the print looked nearly pristine except for a
slight mat burn on the edges. Knowing now that it was a platinum I went to
get the laundry bleach and at that point Melody stopped me.
I can't at the moment remember the name of the maker of the print, it was a
dual name or two men who did pics of India. c. 1880 It is of the Pearl
Mosque and reproduced in the Book "Britsh Imperial India." It is still in
our collection and is worth in the $5000.00 range today.
Had the print been conventionally dry mounted it would be worth zilch
today. I would prefer a dry mount material that could be dissolved off the
print.
--Dick Sullivan
At 04:28 PM 3/20/2002 -0800, you wrote:
>Sandy,
>
>I see your point, but it assumes trust in the manufacturers that the
>tissue and board will stand the test of time. I've had two different
>museum conservators take my platinum workshops and the thought of dry
>mounting any photographs made them both shudder. Admitedly, their
>difficult experiences were mostly with very old dry mounted photos from
>a time when the term "archival" wasn't on the tip of everyone's tongue,
>and mounting materials were marginal at best. But they were both
>adamant that the artwork should always be easily removed from the
>support. We can all hope that today's archival mounting and matting
>materials will live up to the maufacturer's claims, but only our
>grandchildren will know for sure... I suggest anyone dry mounting their
>prints at least use a "reversible" tissue to make it easier on
>conservators in the next century.
>
>The only time I've dry mounted platinum prints is with a transluscent
>parchment paper that I use that wrinkles mercilously after it's been
>processed. I use Light Impressions Heat-Tac tissue for this purpose
>because it is very white rather than the yellowish tint of Seal
>products. The color of the tissue and support is imortant with
>translucent papers, of course... I dry-mount these prints to a more
>substantial paper like Rising Stonehenge. The cream color Stonehenge
>gives a very nice hue to a platinum print on transluscent paper. I like
>using paper for this purpose rather than mattboard because the print
>still feels like a print in my hands. Another reason I don't like prints
>dry mounted to mattboard is that I love the feel of a loose alt-process
>print. The tactile qualities of the paper are important to me, even if
>the print may spend most of it's life in a matt and frame.
>
>Just my opinion...
>Kerik
>www.Kerik.com
>
>Sandy King wrote:
> >
> > Kerik,
> >
> > Assuming that the dry mounting tissue is safe for the print and mat
> > support, and that the mat is of good quality, the board itself will
> > an extra protection by its mere physical presence and is not
> > otherwise harmful to the print. This would seem self-evident as
> > bigger, heavier things are almost always harder to damage or destroy
> > than smaller, lighter things.
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