Tegami-Lab

Happy new year everyone! 🎉
May your worktop always be full of smart mess, pigments, glue and wild pieces of paper. May the cultural heritage and works of art you take care of be given a new life thanks to your dedication and patience beyond all possible limits. May the magic of chemistry have your brain tortured for you to never stop learning. May your beautiful mind and sensitive heart bloom in every wonderful way.
Wish you a dazzling 2026 ✨

Almost exclusively carried out on private collections, when executed in an accurate and controlled way then followed by appropriate several rinsing and neutralization baths, beaching treatments can give a fresh new look on papers that have suffered from foxing stains or photo-oxydation.
Those treatments are usually no longer taught in restoration schools but are still often requested by customers owning works of art on paper.

Measuring the pH level to understand how acidic paper can be before starting the appropriate treatments. The eventual deacidification process and method will depend on the constitutive materials and the pigments used on the work of art.

Preparing a funori solution for the resizing operations of a Japanese traditional Ukiyo-e print. The funori seaweeds have been left soaking and swelling in demineralized water for a few hours before being filtered in a glass bottle. No heating needed.
The restoration process of this specific work of art on paper is still my favorite one to take care of. ☺️🇯🇵

#浮世絵

After I graduated from the Institute for Art and Restoration in Florence (Italy), I spent a year working on a study aiming to restore and preserve traditional Japanese ukiyo-e prints. Years after years, while studying traditional Japanese pigments and paper fibers, I developed a method that allows to clean paper while preserving applied colors. The restoration process of this specific work of art on paper is still my favorite one to take care of. ☺️🇯🇵

#浮世絵

Jun funori (ジュンふのり) has been so far the best resizing agent I’ve been using for the traditional Japanese ukiyo-e style prints restoration process. Soft and delicate on the paper fibers, pH neutral, it hasn’t shown any sign of alteration in time.
If colors allow to do so, after the bath, jun funori gives back to the paper fibers an excellent softness and flexibility.
I always bought it at stores but you can now find it in many different art and crafts retailers. I’ve always preferred to prepare it myself rather than to buy it “ready to use”, so I can use the proper amount needed regarding of the paper conditions and be sure of the quality of the preparation.

Have you ever tried it?😊🙏

Travailler sur les estampes de KBR et en restaurer certaines d’entre elles dans le cadre de mon mémoire de fin d’études au sein de Istituto per l'Arte e il Restauro Palazzo Spinelli fut un réel plaisir. J’en garde de merveilleux souvenirs!
J’espère que ce jeu connaîtra un grand succès!

Sunday funday! Preparing some funori for upcoming resizing operations on traditional Japanese ukiyo-e style prints.

#浮世絵 #修復家 #ふのり