Work
Parchment
Manuscript leaves, deeds, bindings: a prepared skin, very sensitive to moisture.
- Leaves and manuscripts
- Deeds and charters
- Parchment bindings
Parchment is not paper: it is a prepared animal skin. It is very strong, but it reacts strongly to moisture.
Its weaknesses
- Damp makes it cockle and distort, sometimes dramatically.
- Dryness makes it stiff and brittle.
- Inks and colours can flake, especially painted initials and gilding.
How I treat it
Parchment is not treated like paper: no bath. Cleaning is done dry, with great care around inks and colours. Tears and losses are repaired with materials suited to its nature.
The psalter leaf shown in the work is parchment. At the Bibliothèque nationale de France I also made replacement bindings in parchment.