After treatment – the reinforcing paper strip has been removed and the missing part infilled with a piece toned to match the print colour and image.
Infilling missing parts of a photograph – which conservato
rs call “loss” – has two goals. Firstly, to bring support to the teared edges of the photograph that are very fragile. Secondly, to improve the readability of the photographic image. When a piece of an image is missing, it is often very disrupting for the viewer. Thus, by infilling the missing part and toning it to match the image, the conservator goal is to make the viewer forget about the loss by making it visually melt into the image.
© Chloé Lucas Conservation / Inp / ENSBA