Stafford Album

This was one of the most interesting projects we’ve ever worked on.  The Stafford Album is a photo album once belonging to Francis Stafford who was a missionary in China at the turn of the century.  An amateur photographer and lithographer, Stafford was hired by the Commercial Press to manage their printing division in China.  While there he captured photos of the fall of the Qing Dynasty and the Chinese Revolution of 1911 and assembled them in an album along with prints exemplifying early color separation printing. The album was likely purchased at a local drugstore and over time the acidic paper had discolored and disintegrated.  The conservation team at the Stanford Hoover Institution were tasked with restoring this album and they came to us for the paper.  The original paper was green and they were having trouble finding a similarly hued paper that was also archival.  We worked with them to achieve a similarly colored paper that was acid free and the resulting sheets are shown here.