DIGITALIZATION AND RESTORATION

Digitization: Infrared Reflectography

After completing the conservation and restoration work on the pages of Aimé-Adrien Taunay’s notebook, questions were asked about the legibility of what had been written in the document –especially the text written in graphite that was underneath the one written in ink. Thus, new photographic records were carried out and new images were obtained by means of infrared reflection (IRR), using the equipment “Osiris Digital Still Infrared”, handled by Prof. Márcia Rizzutto and Jessica Curado.

Each page of the notebook was digitized with this non-destructive optical technique, by which the observed image results from the conjunction of the phenomena of reflection, absorption and transmission of the superficial layer, revealing hidden peculiarities.

The results obtained allowed to generate clear images of the information in pencil: both in the pages written only with pencil and in the pages with juxtaposition of ink and pencil. From this procedure, the ink used in this notebook, the stains, the deteriorated support became “transparent” and the inscriptions and pencil drawings, previously invisible to the naked eye, came up.

The images of IRR allowed to discover a “new” document with drawings of places visited, and to identify text spontaneously annotated during the artist’s travels during his life.