REMOVING STAINS

Translated From Bonnardot

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VELLUM BINDINGS
(1674 AND 1878)

Before discussing the means of attacking stains which may blemish a book or a precious print, I am going to say that, in certain cases, it might be very desirable to allow them to remain. If I possessed, for example, a missive addressed to Charles IX during the night of Saint Bartholomew, and stained with bloody finger-prints, I would take great care not to disturb these marks which, supposing their authenticity established, would increase tenfold the value of the autograph. If the custodian of the Laurentian Library at Florence should efface, from his Longus manuscript, Paul Louis Courier’s puddle of ink, he would commit an act of vandalism, for that ink stain is a literary celebrity.[2]

To speak of more ordinary examples: one often finds on a book or print, a signature or inscription which may sometimes be an autograph well worth preservation.[3] I very rarely efface signatures or the notes of early, unknown owners; I find it pleasanter to respect these souvenirs of the past. In the same way, some curious objects have certain defects which, I think, add to their interest. For example, a statuette of the Virgin, in silver or ivory, of which the features and hands are half effaced by the frequent contact of pious lips. Restore such worn parts, and the sentiment is stripped from a relic of past ages. It is far better to leave untouched such scars, which attest the antique piety of the cloister. A vellum Book of Hours of the Fifteenth Century, worn and soiled through prayer, has, to my mind, acquired a venerable patina. Here, a spot of yellow wax; there, the head of a saint blemished by the star-print from a tear of devotion: are not these stains which should be respected? On the other hand, a blot of ink or an oily smear point only to carelessness and should be removed.

About the year 1846, I was invited by M. A. Farrens, a skilful restorer of old books, to see in his work-shop a Dance Macabre in quarto, imprinted on paper, at Paris, toward the end of the Fifteenth Century; a rare volume which he was restoring for M. Techner.

The portions already cleaned and restored, compared with those still untouched, excited my admiration. The numerous worm holes, the torn places, had disappeared through an application of paper-paste, so well joined, so well blended in the mass, that I could hardly detect the boundaries of the restorations. The letters and wood-cuts suffering from lacunae had been reformed with great skill on a new foundation. The soiled surfaces of the pages had entirely disappeared before I know not what scraping or chemical action. In a word, M. Farrens was putting into use every secret of restoration to give again to this volume its original lustre.