Physicochemical characterization of electrodeposited printing plates from the early 1840s in Vienna

摘要

The technology of electrotyping was successfully applied for the reproduction of printing plates shortly after its invention in 1838. In Austria, high-quality printing plates have already been produced at the beginning of the 1840s in the first laboratory for electrotyping in Vienna. However, little is known about the properties of electrodeposited printing plates from this early period. In this study the manufacturing process, surface structure, chemical composition, and corrosion properties of three electrotype plates from the Viennese laboratory were investigated. Two samples were intaglio plates made for printing and one was a relief negative for electrotyping reproduction. They exhibited no metal coating, whereas the third sample, a relief plate, was coated with silver to ease the separation from an electrotype copy. Thin colophony films with traces of vegetable wax were identified by ATR-FTIR spectroscopy and GC-MS. Multispectral imaging analysis by UV reflectance indicated a strong inhomogeneous distribution between elevations and depressions of the relief plate.