Chromatic Assessment of Newly Manufactured Leather and Parchment for Museum Purposes

Cultural heritage represents a national treasure evolving from the culture and spirituality of people. Therefore, it must be continuously recovered, protected and developed by all generations as priceless heritage. Referring to the Romanian cultural heritage items that are placed in restoration, at present, some works have been done for partial or complete replacing of degraded materials, both as the result of ageing under atmospheric and biologic agents. The aim of this study is testing different samples of new leather and parchment under UV radiation in the 220-380nm domain, in order to simulate the accelerated destruction in photo-oxidative conditions. The following materials have been studied: book binding leather obtained from calf hide, tanned by different systems (vegetable or vegetable and chromium) and parchment obtained from different kinds of animals. The evolution of the chromatic characteristics (luminosity, shade and chroma) at different exposure time was quantified by the diffuse reflectance technique in visible domain range and CIE – Lab software. Based on the chromatic stability after UV exposure, the most stable types of leather and parchment have been selected for further applications in the restoration process of historical manuscripts and books' covers.