Wednesday, February 27, 2013

LIS 471 Albume Paper Print


Youn Jung Choi (Yuna)

LIS 471 Management of Photographical Archives

Albumen Print

-Introduction

Albumen print was widely adopted by amateur and professional photographers in the second half of the nineteenth century. Showing exceptionally fine detail and the longest tonal range of nineteenth century processes, albumen dominated the field until the rise of emulsion-type gelatin and collodion papers from the late 1880s. Albumen print was employed both for art and commercial photographic printing and was often used for making cartes-de-visite, cabinet portrait photographs, and stereoscopic prints.[1]

 

-Inventor: Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard

 

1869 portrait of Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard[2]

The albumen print was the discovery of a French photographer, Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard. Louis-Dèsirè Blanquart-Evrard was born in Lille, France on August 2, 1802. After working first for a tobacco company, Blanquart-Evrard began studying chemistry under the tutelage of Frederic Kuhlmann and became a laboratory assistant. During this apprenticeship, he combined his interest in art with science and was particularly interested in developing techniques to paint on porcelain and ivory.[3]

After marrying the daughter of a prominent Lyon textile merchant, Blanquart-Evrard joined her family's business. Upon learning of the 1839 invention of the daguerreotype, he began focusing on photographic chemical research. William Henry Fox Talbot's invention of a negative-positive calotype process particularly intrigued him and in 1847, Blanquart-Evrard published the procedure for the calotype negative/positive paper process.[4]

Although Blanquart-Evrard specialized in printing and issuing portfolios of other photographers’ processes, his most significant contribution was the introduction the albumen paper print process.  The albumen paper print process was first published by Blanquart-Evrard in the Bulletin of the French Academy of Sciences on May 27, 1850 and became the primary printing medium until gelatin papers superseded it in the late 1800s.[5]

 

-History

 
Tree, Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard[6]

French, 1853  Salt print  8 3/8 x 6 13/16 in.  84.XO.1279.12 -
 

*Albumen print in 1850s;

     Albumen paper had become the dominant photographic printing material by 1855. A simultaneous revolution in the techniques used to produce photographic negatives enabled the rapid acceptance of albumen paper. The wet collodion negative process, with its long density range and very fine detail, was a great advance over earlier paper negative methods and also gained wide acceptance in the early 1850's. Wet collodion negatives demanded a printing paper capable of more detail and contrast than what the older plain salted papers could provide, and albumen print became the alternative. The albumen print possessed increased detail and contrast because the image resided in the compact layer of albumen on the print surface, instead of deep within the fibers of the paper. [7]

*Tinted albumen paper;

     The discovery of new synthetic dyes during the 1860s made possible the tinting of albumen paper. Pink, blue, and violet dyes were added to the albumen before it was coated. The slight highlight coloration that dyes provided lent a pleasing effect and tended to mask the yellowing of the albumen itself. Tinted paper gained popularity during the 1870s, and the bulk of the albumen paper sold after 1880 was tinted. Pink shades were the most popular.[8]

 

Blue Tinted Albumen Print[9]
This commercial studio portrait is commonly known as a carte-de-visite (CDV) and is of a later variety presenting the sitter's head and shoulders rather than the full-figure. It consists of an albumen print mounted to a thick, 2 ½ x 4-inch paper card. The sitter has been framed in an oval and the card has rounded corners. A blue tint added to the albumen layer is present; this technique introduced in the 1860s was thought to enhance the image and was popular in pink, yellow and blue tints.
 

 
Pink Tinted Albumen Print [10]
This commercial studio portrait is commonly known as a carte-de-visite (CDV) and is of a later variety presenting the sitter's head and shoulders rather than the full-figure. It consists of an albumen print mounted to a thick paper card originally 2 ½ x 4-inches which has been irregularly trimmed or cut at the edges. A pink tint added to the albumen layer is visible; this technique introduced in the 1860s was thought to enhance the image and was popular in pink, yellow and blue tints. The tinting dyes used were unstable and generally faded quickly. However, the dye is still clearly visible in this sample, which could be attributed to the fact that it had been stored in a carte-de-visite album.
 

*Burnishing;

Along with the trend toward tinted albumen paper came the popularity of more glossy print surfaces, especially in commercial portraiture. The smooth surface was attained by applying a second coating of albumen to the paper and by mechanically smoothing the finished print in a roller device known as a “burnisher.” Burnishing gained acceptance during the late 1860s and became almost universal by the mid-1870s. Roller presses of various designs were used not only with small portrait formats, but also on album pages prior to binding, and on large prints of all types. When skillfully done, mechanical surface smoothing could produce an extremely high gloss on an albumen print.[11]

*Enameling;

In the mid-1870s, a practice known as “enameling,” in which prints were coated with collodion, was in fashion briefly. However, because of the cumbersome process, it was soon abandoned. Burnishing remained a routine aspect of print finishing until well after albumen paper had been replaced by gelatin and collodion printing-out papers.[12]

*Ready-Sensitized Paper;

Factory-made albumen paper was not light-sensitized and once it was sensitized, it had to be used almost immediately. There were several ways to solve the problem of keeping quality of sensitized paper. In the early 1870s, the use of citric acid enabled the preparation of sensitized albumen paper with a shelf life of several months. This “ready-sensitized” paper appealed mostly to amateur photographers, whose ranks swelled appreciably during the 1880s. Professional photographers generally continued to sensitize their own paper because it was more economical and gave better results.[13]

 

-Process:

Albumen was prepared by beating salted egg white to a froth, then allowing it to settle back into liquid form. It was applied to the paper by a floating process in which individual sheets were carefully rested on the surface of the solution, then gently lifted off and hung vertically to dry.

In the nineteenth century, workers, generally women, would fill a tray to a depth of approximately two-thirds to three-quarters of an inch with the albumen solution and float the paper on the surface for one and an half minutes. Only on side of the paper would be coated before drying, and if it dried quickly at a high temperature, the result would be glossy. The sensitized and dried sheets of albumen paper were then hung in a closed box and subjected to the vapors of ammonia. The fumes were supplied by placing strong ammonia in a dish in the bottom of the box. The process continued for 5-10 minutes and its purpose was to make the paper more sensitive and to obtain richer, more brilliant prints.[14]

 

The following is a video of making albumen print. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIRF90Je8Vw [15]

 

-Characteristics

 

Visible Paper Fibers [16]
Paper fibers are visible here under high magnification and raking light. The layer structure of an albumen print consists of raw paper and an albumen (egg white) binder in which the image material is suspended. Additional surface coatings (i.e., baryta) that obscure paper fibers are not present.



 
Layer Structure [17]
The albumen print consists of two layers: a thin sheet of plain paper and an albumen (egg white) binder that secures the silver image. In this picture, notice how the silver is consolidated in the albumen layer.
 

 

*Fine Quality;

The albumen print possessed a sharper image and a wider range of tones than its predecessor, the salted paper print. Photographers prized the albumen print’s rich density and its capacity to render fine detail when coupled with the collodian negative.[18]

Albumen was fundamentally superior to more dilute salting-sizing materials because it created an entirely separate layer in which to form the silver image; this made possible much greater density and contrast in the print. The albumen surface was glossy, and its image hues could be altered to a characteristic rage of colors.[19]

*Gold Toning;

Except for some very early examples, virtually all albumen prints were gold-toned. Many photographers found the brick-red color of the untoned albumen print to be unattractive, but were pleased by the rich purple hues of the gold-toned print.

Gold toning originated in 1841 as an improvement in the daguerreotype process, and was first applied to paper prints in 1847. It changed the image hue on a silver printing-out paper from reddish-brown to purple, and improved the stability of the silver image. The exact color of gold-toned albumen prints varies from warm purplish brown to blue-black, depending on the toner formula, time of toning, and a number of factors in the preparation and exposure of the albumen paper. The sequence of steps in processing an albumen print included washing, toning, fixing, and final washing.

*Deteriorations;

The albumen coating shrinks while drying, causing the thin paper to curl upward at the edges, so albumen prints were usually mounted on boards or card stock. Usually printed from collodion negatives, most were trimmed to eliminate the visible edges of the negative and the non-image areas at their corners. Over time, loss of detail in the highlight areas can be dramatic. Especially, mounted prints or prints in albums and books have the tendency to fade from the outside edges inward. Subject to spots and some silver mirroring, the albumen layer is also prone to surface cracking.[20]

Also, albumen paper was inherently "soft-working", and could not be easily adapted to produce good prints from negatives of low contrast. When the gelatin dry plate replaced the wet collodion negative process, the average contrast of negatives declined.[21]

 

-Importance:

As the predominant print method in the 1850s-1890s, the albumen print process introduced the rise of the great industrial photographic houses. Albumen photographs were precise, detailed, cheap and widely distributed. The albumen print brought photography into the beginnings of mass production and consumption and let a greater variety of subjects come into circulation. Photographers could make prints not just for private clients who commissioned the image, but for a wider public that might be interested in the subject.

 

-Bibliography

Hannavy, John. Encyclopedia of nineteenth-Century photography. New York : Taylor &
           Francis Group, 2008.

Kennel, Sarah. In the Darkroom: An Illustrated Guide to Photographic Processes before the
           Digital Age. Washington: National Gallery of Art, 2009.

Reilly, James M. Care and Identification of 19th-Century Photographic Prints. Rochester:
           Eastman Kodak Company, 1986. 

Reilly, James M.  “The History, Technique and Structure of Albumen Prints”. AIC Preprints.

Albumen”. Graphics Atlas. http://www.graphicsatlas.org/

“Historic Camera- Louis-Dèsirè Blanquart-Evrard”, History Camera.com. Last modified May 6,

 “Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard”, Wikipedia, last modified on 22 February 2013,

St Pauls Photography - Albumen Printing”, YouTube,

“Tree”. The J.Paul Getty Museum.

 



[1] Sarah Kennel, In the Darkroom: An Illustrated Guide to Photographic Processes before the Digital Age (Washington: National Gallery of Art, 2009), 9.
[2] “Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard”, Wikipedia, last modified on 22 February 2013, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_D%C3%A9sir%C3%A9_Blanquart-Evrard
[3] “Historic Camera- Louis-Dèsirè Blanquart-Evrard”, History Camera.com, last modified May 6, 2012, http://www.historiccamera.com/cgi-bin/librarium2/pm.cgi?action=app_display&app=datasheet&app_id=1915&
[4] Ibid.
[5] James M. Reilly, “The History, Technique and Structure of Albumen Prints”, AIC Preprints, May 1980, http://albumen.conservation-us.org/library/c20/reilly1980.html
[7] Reilly, “The History, Technique …”
[8] James M. Reilly, Care and Identification of 19th-Century Photographic Prints (Rochester: Eastman Kodak Company, 1986), 6. 
[9] “Albumen (Tinted CDV)”, Graphics Atlas, http://www.graphicsatlas.org/guidedtour/?process_id=143
[10] “Albumen (Pink Tinted CDV)”, Graphics Atlas, http://www.graphicsatlas.org/guidedtour/?process_id=166
[11] Reilly, Care and Identification …, 5.
[12] Ibid, 7.
[13] Ibid, 7.
[14] John Hannavy, Encyclopedia of nineteenth-Century photography (New York : Taylor & Francis Group, 2008), 24.
[15] St Pauls Photography - Albumen Printing”, YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIRF90Je8Vw
[16] “Albumen (Pink Tinted CDV)”, Graphics Atlas, http://www.graphicsatlas.org/guidedtour/
[17] “Albumen (Pink Tinted CDV)”, Graphics Atlas, http://www.graphicsatlas.org/guidedtour/
[18] Kennel, In the Darkroom…, 9.
[19] Reilly, Care and Identification , 5.
[20] Kennel, In the Darkroom…, 9.
[21] Reilly, “The History, Technique …”

No comments:

Post a Comment