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The article focuses on the preservation of works of graphic art on transparent paper. The past few decades have witnessed a widening of the field of cultural heritage to encompass ethnographic and technical objects, as well as artistic and historic materials. In the minds of some, however, technical graphic documents are still very much the poor relations. Until fairly recently, these utilitarian works--drawings by architects, engineers, geographers, preparatory studies for artistic works, archeological drawings--have been overlooked. Unlike artistic works, which quickly caught the attention of collectors and curators, the more ephemeral graphic works have been slower to reveal their potential. By nature both fragile and resistant, this material may be extremely well preserved or suffer rapid deterioration, depending on how it was made. Of all the works on paper in institutional stores, technical graphic documents and artistic works are the most often neglected, untreated, stored in inappropriate conditions, etc. Transparent papers are an important part of this class of material. Tracing papers as they are often called are considered a nightmare by curators of graphic collections. They are numerous and large, thus unwieldy. They are fragile, therefore difficult to consult and to complete the picture they are rarely beautiful or precious.

Transparent papers have been made since the Middle Ages and their production and use have evolved since then through to the present day. The first supports, paper and parchment, were made transparent by impregnation with oily or resinous substances and destined for domestic and artistic uses. The beginning of the nineteenth century was a turning point in the production of transparent papers with the appearance of the first parchment papers and the search for new methods of production of paper. The papermaking industry discovered new papers such as natural tracing, imitation parchment and glassine papers. In this article, historical study based on published sources is complemented by an analytical protocol carried out on a large group of samples of transparent papers. Analytical results are compared with information from published sources in order to verify whether there is a true correlation between the two. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper is a review of bibliographical publications relating to transparent papers during the period 1960 to 1999. Emphasis is placed on conservation treatments. An introductory chapter covering the history and technology of these papers is followed by a description of types of degradation frequently encountered and a short paragraph dedicated to analysis. Subsequent chapters discuss conservation treatments, including dry cleaning, humidification and flattening, washing and deacidification, lining, local repairs, resizing, facing, solvent use and bleaching. A discussion of housing and storage methods completes the review. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]