▷Art objects
▷Paintings or drawings
▷Printed books, libraries, archives
▷Papers, handwritten notes, parchments, incunabula
▷Stone elements, sculptures, architectural elements
When you notice stains on a work of art: paintings, various objects, etc., a microbiological analysis can reveal whether micro-organisms, still active, are responsible for the deterioration.
To do this, it is necessary to take a swab sample and send it to our laboratory for analysis.
On receipt of the swab samples, we carry out inoculation on Petri dishes. Agar plates with different compositions enable us to differentiate between the various micro-organisms still active: bacteria, fungi or yeasts. The most dangerous for our collections are the cellulolytic and proteolytic species: Aspergillus, Penicillium, Eurotium, Chaetonium, Aureobasidium, etc. The rapid proliferation of Trichoderma and Penicillium, Chrysogenum, calls for special measures.
If the conservator wishes to carry out the diagnosis himself, and the medium allows it, instead of swabbing, he can apply a double-sided MICROTEST B agar slide (one side for bacteria and one side for fungi and yeasts) directly to the work, if contact with the agar does not deteriorate the medium to be analyzed.
MICROTEST B agars are supplemented with neutralizing agents to inactivate disinfectant residues which could migrate into the agar and inhibit germ growth.
After incubation, the agar slides can be used to identify active micro-organisms.
If necessary, you can treat with ORGANCIDE QC 50 or a 50% benzalkonium chloride solution, orAlcoholic or Aqueous Econacid, formulations developed by the Laboratoire de Recherche des Monuments Historiques, if the infestation is small.
More extensive infestations, on the other hand, are best treated with ethylene oxide at a specialized facility.
