Influence of Animal Glues Application for Painting Restoration on Paper Characteristics

Abstract

Artists have been used animal glues for a long time as binding and sizing materials of paintings in many countries including Korea. Since animal glues as a binding material lose their own adhesive strength by aging, pigment particles or pigment layers are easily detached from painting surface. Restaurators prefer to use animal glues for consolidation of pigment particles or pigment layers because artists use animal glues as a binder for their painting works. It is widely known that animal glues have different characteristics such as viscosity, stability on water etc. But there are still a few requirements to consider their stabilities for the restoration of paintings. Therefore, this study was aimed to evaluate of stability and efficiency of animal glue applications. The efficiency of animal glue application was decreased with increasing the concentration of animal glue solution. This result means the simple tendency, but does not representative data for other animal glues made from same raw materials. In most cases, the surface and mechanical characteristics of animal glues are dependent on some factors, like viscosity and concentration of animal glue solution.