Microbial Life and Death in a Foxing Stain: a Suggested Mechanism of Photographic Prints Defacement

摘要: The gelatin-silver halide black and white prints represent an enormous photography heritage with a great value. Unaesthetic phenomena, the foxing stains that are caused by microbial growth on surface, have been described in stamps, drawings, books, tissues but, until now, scarcely for photographic materials. In this study, combination of various techniques, including culture-dependent culture-independent approaches (RNA DNA analysis), scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) μ-Raman supported X-ray fluorescence analysis (XRF), permitted to describe contamination dynamics present surface two photographs. investigation provided also information effects activity materials’ chemistry prints. action community resulted locally either (a) formation mixed aluminum-iron-potassium phosphate compounds could be attributed hydrolytic bacteria, (b) leaching barite, (c) precipitation mixture oxides, (d) change barium sulfate chemical structures.