See the Cattani prints in Flesh and Bones: The Art of Anatomy, now on view at the Getty Center.
Why We Gave These Prints a Bath
Sometimes paper needs a little TLC, too
Elina Eder prepares part of the Cattani prints for washing
Photo: Rachel Rivenc
Body Content
When centuries-old paper needs a little TLC, it might enjoy some alone time in the bath.
Humans love a soothing soak, but water baths are also a well-established conservation method used to clean works of art on paper that have undergone some degradation. In the water, stains and discoloration can be reduced, and the artwork emerges fresher, cleaner, and ready for its close-up.
Recently, conservators at the Getty Research Institute (GRI) undertook a project to conserve three of the largest works on paper they had ever worked on. Their mission: to treat Antonio Cattani's three life-size figures in écorché, meaning flayed or without skin. These prints show the muscles and bones of the body and are based on anatomical sculptures by Ercole Lelli. 18th-century medical students and artists used these prints to study the human form.
The images of the figures below, each made up of five prints glued together, were taken before the conservation work began.
Muscle Figure, Seen from the Front, 1780, Antonio Cattani. Etching and engraving on five plates printed on five sheets. Getty Research Institute, 2014.PR.17
Antonio Cattani combined two printmaking processes, etching and engraving, to incise his designs onto the copperplates. Next, the surface of each plate was covered with ink and then wiped clean, leaving ink only inside the etched and engraved lines of the design. A damp sheet of paper was laid onto the plate, and the two were run through a printing press. The inked image was thus transferred from the plate onto the paper. Each plate was inked and printed multiple times, yielding numerous impressions. There were several impressions made of each print.
Muscle Figure, Seen from the Back, 1781, Antonio Cattani. Etching and engraving on five plates printed on five sheets. Getty Research Institute, 2014.PR.18
Second Level of Muscles, 1781, Antonio Cattani. Etching and engraving on five plates printed on five sheets. Getty Research Institute, 2014.PR.19
The GRI acquired the prints in 2014. When conservators opened the box, they discovered several problems. Previously, the prints had been glued onto a linen lining to facilitate storage and display. When the lining was removed, the paper was skinned and damaged. The linen lining was substituted with a paper one, which was now coming apart. Small holes dotted the side margins of the sheets, where they had been stitched to a lining. The top and bottom edges of the sheets presented a series of larger holes spotted with rust, caused by the nails which once attached the prints to the rollers. Treatment was therefore required to stabilize the prints for display and to restore their legibility.
“One of the biggest challenges was that they are printed like fine art prints, but they were used as working prints—demonstration prints in the theater of operation and teaching. So they’re in between art and function,” said Associate Conservator Lisa Forman. “We’ve really been trying to figure out what happened to them and why.”
Taking the Prints Apart
Before beginning the treatment process, the conservators needed to decide if they should remove the paper lining from the prints and re-line them. Ultimately, the team opted only to remove the lining.
“If it was re-lined now, of course it might be a little bit sturdier to handle. But if anything goes wrong with the prints in the future, the prints are so fragile that it would be very difficult for conservators to remove that lining and re-treat them,” said Rachel Rivenc, head of conservation and preservation at the GRI.
With that decision made, the team got to work cleaning the surface of the prints with conservation-grade dry sponges and a few different cleaning solutions, then they removed rust with a scalpel.
Next, the conservators needed to separate each figure into two parts. When assembled, the five prints forming each figure were too large to fit in the lab's conservation sinks. This required a process called humidifying. Forman and Elina Eder, a graduate intern in GRI conservation, humidified the sheets using a Gore-Tex membrane, a material that lets water through in vapor form. After hours of humidification and with additional help from a chemical called isopropanol, they divided each figure in two.
Photo: Elina Eder
Elina Eder applied a poultice to moisten the joints to be separated. The moisture softened the glue between the paper sheets. She used a Teflon spatula to gently separate the overlapping paper.
Bathing the Prints
Now the prints were ready for their baths. Because the ink is not water-soluble and the paper is handmade, the prints could be safely washed in water without being damaged. In the 18th century, paper was made from rags, typically linen or cotton, which were beaten until they were reduced to cellulose pulp. Water washes away the acidic compounds and brown discoloration that can accumulate as the paper ages.
Forman and Eder carefully laid each piece in water, supported by several layers of polyester-based material, for about 10 minutes. During this time, the water filled up with the brown byproduct of degradation. Forman and Eder were able to remove the paper lining very gently in the bath. They drained the tub and added fresh water several times, then removed the prints and carefully set them to dry.
Photo: Rachel Rivenc
Elina Eder bathes the prints in a sink in the GRI lab.
“I love washing the prints, because they look so beautiful in the water,” Eder said. “The colors of the print look richer and more saturated.”
“It was quite funny,” Rivenc added, “because the prints were each separated into two sections to fit them in the sink, the lab was strewn with all these body parts. So you’d go to a table and you’d find legs or a torso.”
Removing Stains and Discoloration
After letting the prints dry overnight, the paper looked brighter and cleaner, but some brown discoloration and stains remained. It’s unclear exactly what caused the stains, but the team hypothesized that some of them might be blood. Others were insect droppings or soil. To lessen their appearance, they applied hydrogen peroxide to these areas using a brush and a fine mist sprayer.
Elina Eder sprays hydrogen peroxide on a print to remove discolored spots.
At this stage, the challenge was to reduce some of the damage but still allow the paper to retain the rich, visual characteristics of its age.
“When it’s viewed, we don’t want the eye to just go to the damage. It should look at the whole print, but also not be confused—are these new or old?” Forman said. “We could make them white, but we don’t want to do that.”
Strengthening the Paper
A pulpy blend of paper fiber and water deposited onto the back of the paper with a pipette dropper added more thickness and stability to the thinned-out areas. Eder used paper very similar to the original to fill in large paper losses, or dried paper pulp to fill small ones. Next, the prints were flattened under thick blotters, a plexiglass sheet, and weights.
Elina Eder applies paper pulp on the back of the print while Rachel Rivenc looks at it in raking light (a light source that is parallel to the surface). The pulping took place on a suction table, which is a mesh board connected to a vacuum.
Photo: Elina Eder
After the pulping procedure, the prints were flattened under a blotter, plexiglass, and weights.
Forman and Eder rejoined the separated sections of the prints with wheat starch paste, restoring the figures to their full sizes. Finally, they applied touches of watercolor and pastel (both are reversible media), to tone down new paper in-fills as well as small, bright spots in areas that were aggressively abraded in a previous treatment.
Elina Eder retouches a print with watercolors and pastels.
Safe to handle and display, the prints went on view in the exhibition Flesh and Bones: The Art of Anatomy looking brighter and cleaner than before, and with added strength that will allow them to be enjoyed by viewers for a few more centuries.
The images of the prints below were taken after the treatment process concluded.
Muscle Figure, Seen from the Front, 1780, Antonio Cattani. Etching and engraving on five plates printed on five sheets. Getty Research Institute, 2014.PR.17
Muscle Figure, Seen from the Back, 1781, Antonio Cattani. Etching and engraving on five plates printed on five sheets. Getty Research Institute, 2014.PR.18
Second Level of Muscles, 1781, Antonio Cattani. Etching and engraving on five plates printed on five sheets. Getty Research Institute, 2014.PR.19
Notice the improved legibility and condition of the paper in these before and after images.
The top image was taken post-treatment, and the lower image was taken pre-treatment. Muscle Figure, Seen from the Front (detail), 1780, Antonio Cattani. Etching and engraving on five plates printed on five sheets. Getty Research Institute, 2014.PR.17.
