Working on "The City of San Francisco" Hand Colored Lithograph

Paper Department:

Humidification and Flattening

Emilie van der Hoorn, Associate Paper Conservator during treatment

This large incredibly detailed hand colored lithograph entitled: The City of San Francisco has been in our client’s family for a very long time. The owner was very interested in having the print conserved so that she could pass it down to her daughter.

The print depicts figures of children playing and three adults in a garden overlooking the city with an open square and a harbor beyond. This sweeping panoramic view of San Francisco, published in the year 1855, captures the city as it settles into its new urban standing as the financial center of the American West. The artist, Flessenden Nott Otis, drew the view from a point on Rincon Hill, at the time San Francisco’s most stylish residential area. It is hard to imagine, but if we were to take a picture from the same spot today, standing at about the center would be Salesforce Tower. The viewer looks north over Happy Valley and the South of Market Area towards Telegraph Hill, Russian Hill, and Nob Hill. In the far background, beneath a calm clouds of the afternoon sky, we see parts of Marin including Mt. Tamalpais, Angel Island, Yerba Buena Island and the East Bay Hills that rise to the right.

Treatment for the print included removing the work from the old framing materials including the acidic secondary support and the heat-set lining tissue which both were causing discoloration in the paper. The print was then humidified and washed several times to reduce the staining in the paper. The remaining stains were treated locally to further reduce and the paper flattened. Finally, the edge tears were repaired and the skinned areas in the sky were consolidated and inpainted to prepare the work for framing.