Posted by Noel Chiappa (98.166.150.196) on February 25, 2011 at 02:38:43:
In Reply to: Re: Unknown artist! posted by Mikael on February 24, 2011 at 21:45:06:
"This print is very dirty. Do you have any idea how I can get ride of the dirt?"
There is a (rare) book called 'Care and Repair of Japanese Prints', which lists a number of procedures for cleaning prints. However, I would not recommend any of them without practise: you need to try them a few times on junk prints before trying a print you care about.
One procedute a novice can safely do is to wash it in distilled water (the inks used at this point in time are water-fast, unlike many Meiji-era prints - do _not_ wash those). Put the print in a low tray (large enough for the print to lie flat), add the water, let it sit for a while so dirt can soften, and then gently move it backwards and forwards for a while to remove dirt.
Don't expect to get a great deal of dirt out with this procedure, but it is relatively safe.
Dry the print by placing it on a flat surface between about a dozen layers of paper (_blank_ newspaper paper, or paper towels, or somesuch), place a flat object on top (large enough to complete cover the print, such as a really _large_ book), weight well (for example, a couple of large books), and leave to dry.
You can speed the process up by waiting 15 minutes or so, and replacing the half-dozen layers of paper next to the print with new, dry, paper.
Noel