Le montage des photographies sur papier albuminé dans les albums : étude de conservation de la collection du Centre des archives d'Outre-Mer et traitement de l'album Lauratet

Conserved at the Centre des archives d'Outre-Mer, the Lauratet album presented problems commonly encoutered in the conservation of albums made by amateurs: the unsuitable mounting of the photographs associated with the harmfulaction of materials of mediocre quality. The albumen prints in this album, assembled by a young colonial officer from Réunion in the late-nineteen century, were only partially pasted to the cardboard leaves. The result was the mechanical fragility of the photographs, risking serious deterioration when handled. In order to preserve the unity of the object, the method of intervention was founded on the idea of protecting the photographs and sought to avoid dismantiling the album. Before studying the object itself and embarking on its conservation treatment, the state of conservation of the entire collection of albums to which the Lauratet compilation belongs was studied. The applied research probed for understanding the causes of the alterations: the planar distorsion of the leaves and the craking of the albumen binder. This allowed for better comprehension of the stress factors resulting from overall mounting on board and fot the elaboration of two distinct techniques of overall mounting which limit the tensionn: a direct-mounting process of the print with Japanese paper on the one hand, and an direct mounting process of the photograph on the other. After treatment the albumen prints of the Lauratet album have not only a much better protection against tearing but also, due to the isolation of both sides of the prints, against the deterioration resulting from their contact with the materials.