Are you talking about a specific collection, or their collection in general?
>and it is a process of opening up boxes to see what is in them. During one
>hour of print viewing you can usually look at three boxes.
Sounds like their archives are pretty accessible. Last time I was doing
research at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, they told me they didn't
have anymore seats available and I needed an appointment 18 months in
advance:-(
> I didn't find the Hollywood portraits, just landscape closeups of a
>tree and a wave. It was hard to tell that they weren't color prints,
>although they had a little of the feel of dye transfers.
> What is the difference between carbro and carbon prints? I have heard
>of a three color carbon print.
You would think that they would have someone qualified to identify these.
Without all these prints in front of you, properly identified, and a
specialist pointing to the differences, it is hard to learn what is what.
It helps tremendously if you have been making such prints yourself for a
long period of time, of course. I have thousands of prints representing
over 300 printing, photographic and photomechanical processes, *identified*
in my collection here. (I'll be making the list available shortly via
e-mail, to anyone who wants it, just e-mail to me, DIRECTLY please). To be
honest however, I would not have been able to identify many of them myself,
had it not been for the fact that they came, often in a book, properly
identified. For instance with a caption saying: "This is a specimen of a
Rembrandt Colourgravure, produced by the Rembrandt Intaglio Works". Or
"this is a specimen of Woodburygravure", or "Phototypie par M.
Dujardin),etc. In many cases it is not possible to say exactly how a print
was made, but it is usually possible to say how it was NOT made, and that
in itself can be quite useful.
It has taken me over 20 years to build up this collection. To the Alt-photo
practitioners looking through this collection, they can see for themselves,
for instance, that there is no collotype work being produced, at this time,
(well, as far as *I* have been able to find) that can approach what was
made say, in France, 100 years ago. When attempting a new process it is
important to know what it can do, when pushed to the limit. This way, you
know when you have achieved the best.
One of my upcoming books will cover the identification of prints. Its
tentative tile is: _A Historian's/Conservator's Guide to the Technical
Assessment of Prints and Photographs_. You'll need more than this book to
identify originals however. You'll have to study the real McCoys.
Luis Nadeau