L'herbier Haller du Muséum d'histoire naturelle : un objet d'intérêt historique et scientifique : étude, restauration du volume n° 16 et recherche d'un papier adapté à  la conservation de ses planches

 Conservation of the Haller herbarium in the National Museum of Natural History of Paris. Famous Swiss naturalist Albrecht von Haller (1708-1777) is the author of a fifty nine volume herbarium of dried plants. The Haller herbarium originally taken as spoils of war during the Italian campaigns in 1796 in Pavia is now preserved in the National Museum of Natural History of Paris. The way the Haller herbarium is bound does not allow an exhaustive scientific study of the collection. Actually a repeated handling of the bound plates would have resulted in a destruction of plant samples. By far the most damaged, volume N° 16 has been chosen for conservation processing. Both historical and scientific interests in the Haller herbarium have been discussed for a long time. A total dismantling of the volume – without any further binding – appeared as the most satisfactory solution to make the specimen safe to consult. Unbound and restored plates have been inserted into a paper folder. Technical and scientific study helped to choose a paper suitable to maintain the original way the plates were interwoven. Restoring the plates has been particularly difficult and required a special lining method which had to take the frailty and mass of the plants into account. Two conservation boxes house the restored plates and allow their handling. This restoration work is foreshadowing a project of complete restoration of the other 58 volumes and thus allowing a scientific study of the Haller herbarium.