Colour and Conservation

SINCE the studies by Rawlins, Bradley, and Barnes appeared some years ago, little has been published on the use of colour science in conservation. Notable advances have been made, however, in the past twenty years in its application to technical problems, especially in the U.S.A. This paper is an attempt to summarize aspects of the subject that might be of interest to conservators, and to provide a common ground for future discussion. The terminology of the subject is not easy to grasp, though it is necessary to be precise in this respect so that records compiled at the present time can be interpreted in the distant future. The terms used here are taken mainly from the Physical Society Report of 1948 I. In general, English and American terms are either identical or readily comparable.