Conserving Texas History - Houston/Raguet Letter

Media

	The document is written in iron-gall ink, apparently applied with a steel dip pen, in a wide variety of intensities. Much pressure was used in the application of the ink, so many of the letters have extremely heavy down strokes. Some of the flourishes and crossbars of the letters are written with a much lighter pressure.
	There is also a blot on the right side of the verso that appears to have been caused by a drop of ink falling on the paper. All of the ink appears to be of the same batch.
	The address panel (left side of verso) is marked with a "V" approximately 3/4" tall, in bright blue ink. This appears to be a cataloger's annotation.
	There are faint graphite markings on the address panel, to the right of the address, as well as a small graphite line under Anna Raguet's name on the signature page (recto, right). This line appears to be a flourish from a letter, however the rest of the letter has been removed with the missing corner.
	There is a graphite number 12 in the upper left corner of the recto that appears to be a cataloger's annotation.

Primary Support

The letter is written on handmade paper with a wove texture. The original color was probably cream or off-white. There is a faint watermark, however it has been rendered mostly illegible by the writing and the silk on the letter. The first three letters of the watermark appear to be AMI. The paper is fairly crisp in texture. There is a papermaker's tear above the name "Raguet" on the lower right of the recto.

The paper is embossed in two places with a circle approximately 1/2" in diameter at the center top of the letter. The embossing is now illegible but probably is an ownership marking.

The sheet of paper was folded into a folio, which was later folded to make an envelope.

CONDITION

The overall condition of the document is poor.

Media

The iron gall ink is faded, almost to the point of illegibility, in some areas of the document.

This fading appears to correspond to two large bands of staining across the top and bottom of the document. The iron gall ink is sinking through the document badly, although it does not interfere with legibility.

There is less sinking apparent on the stained areas, which may be either a result of decreased transparency of the paper, or washing out of the ink.

The color of the ink ranges from the palest brown in the faded areas to nearly black on the heaviest down strokes. The ink has the flat appearance of iron gall ink that has been washed. This is consistent with the application of silk.

The blue ink "V" on the verso shows some signs of solubility. It has spread slightly, and is darker at the edges of the ink lines than at the center.

The graphite markings appear to be stable.

Primary Support

The primary support is very yellowed. Its current color is a very pale yellow-brown.

The primary support appears clean, and it is likely that surface cleaning was performed prior to silking. There are, however, many stains on the document. There is a large light brown stain across the top of the document, and another large light brown stain across the bottom of the document. These stains are associated with increased opacity of the support. The silk has also come off in the areas of staining. These appear to be water stains. There are also black mold stains at the upper center of the recto of the letter.

There are a few small accretions of paper at the lower center of the left of the verso. These are almost certainly associated with a small loss at the lower center of the right of the recto.

The document is heavily creased along all fold lines, especially along the address panel. These creases have associated tears and losses at every intersection of the tears, as well as along the center fold.

There are four large losses in the document. Two of these are certainly associated with Anna Raguet's breaking of the seal and opening the letter. These are located at the address panel's left and right.


The third large loss is at the left of the text page of the verso in a position that indicates that it, too, may have come from opening the letter. The edges of the two losses from the seal both have many creased back fragments of paper.

The fourth large loss is the entire lower right corner of the recto, which appears to have been cut out with scissors

There are a few small edge tears, extending approximately 1/2" into the support.

The seal remnants appear to be stable and strongly attached, however, the fragment caught under the silk in Houston's signature may be loose once the silk is removed.

Secondary Support
The silk is very soft, and its attachment to the support is tenuous. The silk covers only approximately the horizontal center third of the document, although fibers and small patches of silk indicate that originally silk was applied to the entire recto of the document. It is likely that the silk was detached at the time that the water staining occurred.

Approximately 16 inches of glassine tape have been applied over the silk on the recto of the document. This shiny paper adhesive tape is also tenuously attached to the document, and can be manually removed. It does not appear to have caused any staining of the letter. It is anticipated that the tape will be easily removed when the silk is removed.

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TREATMENT PROPOSAL

TESTING

Three types of testing were performed on this document.

A microscopic sample of the ink was tested with potassium ferrocyanate and hydrochloric acid to verify that it is indeed iron gall ink. The sample turned blue when touched with both of these solutions, which indicates iron gall ink.

A droplet of water was placed on the red seal to test its resistance to water. The seal did not swell, soften, or become detached from the support when wet.

Solubility testing was performed for each media (iron gall ink, blue ink, graphite).

TREATMENT OBJECTIVE

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE

DESCRIPTION

CONDITION

TREATMENT PROPOSAL

TESTING

TREATMENT REPORT