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The restorer Johann Michael von Hermann (1793–1855), famous in the early nineteenth century, has long fallen into oblivion. A recent discovery of his work associated with old master prints at the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München has allowed a close study of his methods and skills as well as those of his pupil Ludwig Albert von Montmorillon (1794–1854), providing a fresh perspective on the early history of paper conservation. Von Hermann's method of facsimile inserts was praised by his contemporaries, before Max Schweidler (1885–1953) described these methods in 1938. The present article provides biographical notes on both nineteenth century restorers, gives examples of prints treated by them and adds a chapter of conservation history crediting them with a place in the history of the discipline. In summary, this offers a surprising insight on how works of art used to be almost untraceably restored by this team of Munich-based restorers more than 150 years before Schweidler. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The restorer Johann Michael von Hermann (1793–1855), famous in the early nineteenth century, has long fallen into oblivion. A recent discovery of his work associated with old master prints at the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München has allowed a close study of his methods and skills as well as those of his pupil Ludwig Albert von Montmorillon (1794–1854), providing a fresh perspective on the early history of paper conservation. Von Hermann's method of facsimile inserts was praised by his contemporaries, before Max Schweidler (1885–1953) described these methods in 1938. The present article provides biographical notes on both nineteenth century restorers, gives examples of prints treated by them and adds a chapter of conservation history crediting them with a place in the history of the discipline. In summary, this offers a surprising insight on how works of art used to be almost untraceably restored by this team of Munich-based restorers more than 150 years before Schweidler. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Victorian Britain rags were not only associated with the inadequate clothing of the poor, they were also viewed as a valuable commodity, widely collected for recycling into paper. This essay examines rags as simultaneously despised and precious objects, tracing the connections between Victorian accounts of poverty, the industrial recycling of rags into paper, and the redemption narratives created by Charles Dickens about rescued children. A supporter of Ragged Schools and champion of rags recycling, Dickens drew on the idea of the transformation of dirty rags into clean paper in his representations of ragged children. To him, the recycling of rags indicated the civilizing forces of modernity, and reading Dickens's representations of ragged children in this context reveals how cloth recycling became a paradigm for society's duties towards destitute children. This essay explains Dickens's juxtaposition of ragged children with references to rag-dealing in his novels; by this means he suggested that street children, like their ragged clothing, were capable of being purified and transformed into social usefulness. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]