| AVS 61st International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Conservation Studies of Heritage Materials Focus Topic | Friday Sessions |
| Session CS-FrM |
| Session: | Conservation Studies of Modern Heritage Materials 3 |
| Presenter: | Edward Vicenzi, Smithsonian Institution |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
The daguerreotype photographic process represents the first practical form of photography and was presented to the scientific community in France in 1839. The technology spread rapidly and was widely used for roughly two decades. Image formation can be generalized in four steps: 1) sensitizing a silver-coated copper plate to halogen vapors, 2) exposing the sensitized plate to visible light within a camera, 3) development of an image after the plate is treated with heated mercury vapor, and finally 4) deposition of a gold gilding layer [1,2]. A effort is underway to evaluate several aspects of daguerreotypes including obtaining the composition of the nanoparticles that give rise to image contrast, the protective gilding layer, and corrosion products formed from exposure to atmospheric and other contaminants. A range of scanning and transmission electron- and X-ray-induced spectroscopies have been utilized to characterize these plates on the nano- and submicron- length scales in an effort to inform the long term preservation of these precious objects.
Re fe rence s:
[ 1] Barger MS and White WB. The daguerreotype: nineteenth-century technology and modern science The Johns Hopkins University Press, ISBN-13: 978-0801864582, 280 pgs (2000).
[ 2] Swan A, Fiori CE, and Heinrich KFJ. Scanning electron microscopy 1, 411-423 (1979).