Non-Invasive Investigation of 19th-Century Photographs: Enrico Van Lint’s Historical Collection in Pisa

Enrico Van Lint (Pisa, 1808–1884) was a very prolific photographer, active in Pisa in the 19th century where he had a prominent photographic atelier. He was a meticulous experimenter, investigating the evolving photographic activity of his historical period. While his early works included calotypes using Fox Talbot’s methods, he rapidly adopted the collodion processes, becoming one of the most important Italian photographers that used this technique. At the present time, a vast number of examples of the works from Van Lint’s ateliers are preserved and archived in Pisa, under the supervision of the Italian Ministry of Culture in the Photographic Archive of the “Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio per le provincie di Pisa e Livorno” (SABAP). This collection is composed of positive prints as well as glass plate negatives, from both Van Lint himself and his colleagues. To this day, Van Lint’s collection has not been studied using analytical techniques, and the identification of the photographic processes involved in the preparation of the positive prints has relied exclusively on thorough observation by historians and conservators. This provides a unique occasion for a first study of Van Lint’s collection, using multiple non-invasive and non-destructive techniques (multispectral imaging, XRF, and FTIR) that can identify the photographic process used to make the positives, as well as highlight significant differences or degradation phenomena. In this preliminary work, we investigated a selection of ten positive prints, attributed to both Van Lint himself and later reproductions from the original glass negatives. The selected samples include prints previously classified as albumen prints and gelatin prints, displaying slight differences in conservation status as well as in print finish. This analytical approach allowed for a proper characterization of these Van Lint’s prints, improving the historical and conservation knowledge to implement the best preventive preservation actions in the near future.