Ruminations on Safely Sealing Daguerreotypes
I have had the opportunity recently to purposefully “age” some daguerreotypes for a client. I will elaborate more on this process in the future but I’d like to share some related information about daguerreotype protection. The surface of a daguerreotype is very fragile as you can see in my video “How to Destroy a Daguerreotype.”
Protection from physical danger is essential but it’s only half the battle. Chemical corrosion is also an enemy. Protection from airborne chemical contaminants is very important for the longevity of the image. You need to seal off the daguerreotype from the atmosphere using some sort of tape, chamber, etc.
I wrote a letter last year to Dr. Susan Barger, author of the significant book The Daguerreotype: Nineteenth-Century Technology and Modern Science
Dr. Barger,
Please forgive the intrusion but I have a question for which I believe you are the only person on the planet that has the expertise to answer.
I am a daguerreotypist and I am concerned about my sealing process. I want to prevent the problems that I’ve read about in your exhaustive study of daguerreotype conservation. Since I am sealing fresh Becquerel-process daguerreotypes, I wonder if you might have some advice.
Currently I wash the developed daguerreotype in distilled water after gilding, force-dry with a blow dryer, seal half of the package with JLAR tape, heat the front and back of the package with a blow dryer for 30 seconds each (or so) to drive out any remaining water vapor and then seal the other half of the package.
I’m wondering if I could ensure that the package is free of oxides and sulfides by performing the sealing process in a vacuum chamber. If so, do you have any advice on doing this?
Thank you!
Jonathan Danforth
and her reply:
Dear Jonathan,
I think that hermetically sealing a daguerreotype is over kill and it really doesn’t work. My husband (name omitted) uses Lexan to glaze daguerreotypes - it is whiter than most glasses and it is much more stable. You do need to be careful of scratches, but he has been using it for about 10 years with no problems. He uses JLar tape. I understand that there have been some studies that show that JLar emits some acid - I don’t think this would be a problem with a daguerreotype - there is very little contact with the plate.
I’d be more worried about the amount of time you are spending heating your plates. Becquerrel images are fairly fragile - I’d only heat them when drying and forget the second heating.
Best regards,
MSB
It has been suggested to me that sealing with Filmoplast P90 is sufficient (and popular) and that the addition of a brass plate preserver will retard the process of corrosion.
Period daguerreotypes have survived, of course, with far less advanced materials so we could scarcely do worse than what the original daguerreotypists used. Being that we’re developing the medium (so to speak) I submit that we should be devising new and improved methods for daguerreotype preservation. Because who else will?
I routinely use Filmoplast T, by the way, for the inside of my cases. The T is then covered with a wafer thin piece of leather.
Discuss…
Jonathan
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One of the advantages of being a neophyte is that I can post ideas that would make an experienced daguerreotypist shudder or perhaps just laugh. So in the spirit of provoking discussion (or at least providing a target) here are a few (weird) thoughts I have had on the subject:
1) Seal the entire dag in casting resin
2) If having the resin touch the developed surface destroys the dag, put a glass cover over the image and seal it well enough to keep out the resin and then seal that whole package in resin. It sure wouldn’t look antique.
3) Seal the dag inside a glass container, melt it shut. (How much heat can they take? Any?
4) Use helium or nitrogen to displace the air before sealing as a way to drive out oxygen and sulfer compounds. Less reactive atmosphere means less corrosion.
5) Put the dag in a jar and immerse it in a non-reactive fluid - optical grade mineral oil maybe - the play of light through the fluid changes the experience of viewing the image.
6) Instead of vacuum sealing them - vacuums are notoriously hard to maintain, seal them while they are in a super-dehumidified chamber - not sure how to achieve that simply however.