Here at The Center, we love helping clients preserve pieces of their family history. When a client brought in an ambrotype cased photograph of one of their ancestors, our conservators were eager to get to work.
Read below about the history of the piece, and scroll further to watch the treatment process in action.
The piece prior to treatment.
The case prior to treatment.
An ambrotype is a type of photograph created on a glass plate, typically using the collodion wet plate process. English sculptor Frederick Scott Archer introduced the wet collodion process in 1851, which was faster and cheaper than other methods, and produced sharper details. It was popular in the mid-19th century, particularly in the 1850s and 1860s. In this process, a glass plate was coated with a thin layer of collodion, which was then sensitized with silver nitrate to make it light-sensitive. The image was captured while the plate was still wet and developed immediately.
The key feature of an ambrotype is that it produces a positive image on a dark background, usually achieved by placing the glass plate against a black backing. When viewed, the image appears as a photograph but without the negative used in modern photography.
This particular piece, our client shared, was found by a local antique “picker” in the attic of a house in Zanesville, Ohio, misidentified as the image of another man who had married into the family in the late 1800s.
“David Lowry, Jr. (1767-1859) is my third-great-grandfather,” our client told us of the man in the image. “He was the third son of an Ulster Scot immigrant (people who emigrated from Ulster, Ireland's northernmost province, to North America in the 17th and 18th centuries), a backwoodsman farmer from south-central Pennsylvania. He floated a flatboat down the Ohio River from Pittsburg to what would later be called Cincinnati with his aging parents and five siblings in 1795. In 1799, after four years in the area, he built and floated another flatboat with salted hams and venison to New Orleans, returning by way of the Natchez Trace to his homestead and grist mill east of Dayton.”
A flatboat, courtesy of Indiana Public Media.
His story is one of hard work and opportunity, making a stable life for his family in the Ohio frontier before it officially became a state. His family would continue farming in the area until the end of the 19th century. Our client shared about the discovery of this ambrotype: “I found in an 1888 history book of the area a sketch of ‘Junior’ that seemed almost photographic in its attention to detail. The cased ambrotype you are conserving is the original from which the local history book’s image was made; however, the book’s image was reversed from this original. After a local historian in the Dayton area became aware of this cased ambrotype, it was recognized as the original image that somehow had been copied for the local history publication. This image had to have been made between 1851, when the ambrotype process was invented, and Junior’s death in 1859.”
The image our client found in the history book of the area.
Given the age of the piece, our conservators observed some inherent age-related discoloration, and the surface was coated with particulate film. The front tray had detached from the hinge of the rear case. The glass plate was broken and lacquered directly, with areas of cracking. The preserver and mat exhibited corrosion and deterioration. The velvet cushion on the front tray was missing, revealing the wooden piece from the case. The case was made of wood wrapped in embossed leather, which had abrasions and areas of wear. Tape had been adhered to the broken hinges, and the upper wall of the rear case was detaching.
Our conservators prepared their workstation.
Our conservators began their treatment to preserve this heirloom: the piece was photographed for in-house documentation before and after treatment. The piece was surface-cleaned with appropriate materials to conservation standards.
Watch our conservators carefully surface-clean this piece:
The tape at the hinge was removed. The hinge and detaching wall of the case were repaired.
The tape at the hinge was carefully removed.
The glass plate was repaired, and a new backing of Mylar was added. New glazing was cut, and the plate was reassembled and sealed. The photograph was reinstalled in the case, and a new cushion was created to cover the exposed wood.
Watch our conservators create a new cushion:
Now carefully stabilized and conserved, this beautiful cased ambrotype is ready to be reunited once again with its family members, to be cherished for generations to come.
Before treatment.
After treatment.
