Component Three: Applied Research
The analytical methodology and testing procedures developed in the project are used in the work of the GCI's Museum Research Laboratory and in numerous collaborative projects with the J. Paul Getty Museum and GRI, and in selected collaborations with museums, archives, and photographic collections, to provide scientific information for conservation treatments of photographs. They are also used to advance knowledge of artist techniques and practices, and to support provenance and authentication studies related to photographs and photographic material.

Recent applied research projects include:

• scientific investigation and preventive treatment of the world's first photograph
• scientific investigation of the baryta-layer coating used in black-and-white photographic paper

The First Photograph Project
In June 2002, the world's first photograph, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce's View from the Window at Le Gras (1826), arrived at the GCI for scientific analysis. Niépce's work, part of the photographic collection of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin, is the first example of a permanent image created by exposing a photosensitive plate in a camera-like device. Although Niépce's process was generally documented, the image itself had never before been scientifically analyzed. The Ransom Center asked the Institute to conduct the first scientific study of the heliograph's material makeup and to determine the object's state of conservation.

	Shin Maekawa of the GCI (left) and Barbara Brown of the Harry Ransom Center standing with a replica of the case designed to house the first photograph. Photo: Dusan Stulik.

The GCI scientific team used noninvasive analytical techniques, including X-ray fluorescence (XRF), Fourier-transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR), and reflection spectrophotometry to study the image. The XRF analysis confirmed the plate to be pewter composed of lead, copper, nickel, and iron. FTIR and microscopic analysis confirmed the image layer to be bitumen—though not a solid layer as presumed but, rather, a layer of microdots. This unexpected discovery raises new questions about the image's creation and its preservation. The overall state of conservation of the photograph was good; only small areas of corrosion were noted around its edges.

Work Completed

Working in collaboration with the Research on the Conservation of Photograph's project team and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, scientists from the GCI's Environmental Research section designed, tested, and installed a new protective enclosure for the first photograph.

The high-tech protective enclosure not only helps to preserve the photograph in a nitrogen atmosphere, free of oxygen, but it also makes use of a highly sophisticated set of sensors to guard the work against any changes to its protective atmosphere.

Baryta Layer Research Symposium
This one-day symposium took place at the Getty Conservation Institute in January 2006 and was attended by seventy-five participants including conservators, conservation scientists, dealers, appraisers, and curators. The focus of the event was a discussion of results from the ongoing collaboration between the Research on the Conservation of Photographs project team and Boston-based independent conservator Paul Messier to characterize certain features of twentieth-century photographic paper.

	The Baryta Layer Research Symposium consisted of a series of conservation and conservation science lectures, a demonstration of the analytical methodology for the identification of photographs, and a roundtable discussion of research needs related to twentieth-century photography. Photo: Art Kaplan.

Giacomo Chiari, chief scientist at the Getty Conservation Institute, provided symposium participants with an introduction to the GCI's research agenda and reiterated the Institutes commitment to additional research into the characterization of photographic materials.

Discussion of baryta layer reasearch began with Paul Messier who discussed the development of his reference collection of historic photographic papers. Papers from this collection, all identified by manufacturer, brand, date, and finish were the basis for much of the work highlighted during the rest of the symposium.

	Symposium participants had the opportunity to learn about other GCI photograph conservation projects and GCI research in general. Photo: Dusan Stulik.

Senior Scientist Dusan Stulik, project manger of the Research on the Conservation of Photographs project, presented the results of an extensive examination of the historic paper samples using X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF). Among the common elements detected were barium and strontium (from the baryta layer), calcium (paper base), and often chromium (present as a gelatin-hardening agent). Measurement of these elements, especially when compared to the baseline of papers of known provenance, can provide clues into the origins of prints, possibly identifying the manufacturer, brand, and date.

David Miller, professor of Chemistry at California State University, Northbridge, reviewed his work using inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP–MS) and neutron activation analysis (NAA) for elemental analysis of photographic papers. These techniques were used to confirm and extend the quantitative XRF analysis as well as to search for additional trace elements that could be useful in provenance studies.

	A new analytical methodology for the identification of twentieth-century photographs was demonstrated to symposium participants directly in the lecture room. Photo: Dusan Stulik.

GCI project team member Art Kaplan discussed the distribution of key elements, as well as trace elements such as aluminum, silicon, potassium, manganese, iron, copper, potassium and chromium within the multiple layers of a gelatin silver photograph. Cross sections of photographic paper were used to render elemental maps showing the location and relative concentrations of these and other elements. The cross sections were analyzed using an environmental scanning electron microscope (ESEM) as well as a combination of energy dispersive X-ray analyzer (EDX) and ICP–MS.

GCI project team member Renaud Duverne presented the projects research into the measurement of other physical parameters of gelatin silver paper, including baryta particle size, overall paper thickness, emulsion thickness, emulsion super coat thickness, baryta thickness, and overall paper density. All of these variables, especially when combined with techniques for elemental analysis, can be extremely useful for characterizing a large reference collection of photographic papers.

Dusan Stulik and project team member Tram Vo provided a practical demonstration of how the quantitative XRF technique can be used to identify the manufacturer and brand of photographic paper used in a photograph of unknown origin by comparing the paper to a small reference set of characterized papers.

	Analysis of an unknown photograph was conducted with participation from the symposium audience. Photo: Dusan Stulik

The symposium concluded with a roundtable discussion. Dominant themes of the discussion included the need for additional forums for conservators, curators and dealers to exchange information; the need for additional collaborative projects to characterize other photographic features, such as paper fiber analysis and surface texture; and the fact that these emergent tools will only serve to compliment, but not replace, existing modes of connoisseurship.

The symposium abstracts are available in PDF format:
Baryta Layer Symposium Abstracts (30pp., PDF format, 2.3MB)

Last updated: August 2007