Timna Elper
Samples of Document Conserving
Family album with photographs and documents. Private collection.
Owner of the collection writes:
“I inherited from my grandfather, Rabbi David Wolpert o.b.m., a collection of letters that he and his father, Rabbi Chaim Wolpert o.b.m, received from leading rabbis (Rabbi Avraham Isaac Hakohen Kook, Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grozinsky, Rabbi Elhanan Wasserman, the ‘Chafetz Chaim’, and others) in the early 20th century.
My great joy was tempered with great concern: the ravages of time were already manifest among some of the letters, and signs of fading, crumbling and staining dampened my hopes of passing on the letters to my family’s future generations.
Fortunately, I heard about Timna, who has made a reputation for herself as an expert in document restoration.
Timna treated the letters with great devotion and expertise. She created a folder for the original documents, which underwent a process of restoration that removed decades of aging and – more importantly – halted their deterioration.”
Before
After
Page from the Book of Genesis in Judeo-Persian
Date unknown. Private collection.
Page with Illustration
The book that this page was torn from is written in Persian. The text itself is unidentified, but the subject is morality. The book comes from northern India, probably Kashmir, and dates to the 18th or 19th century. The text itself may have been copied much earlier, perhaps even in Iran, leaving space for the miniature illustration . Private collection.
“Shiviti” – Menorah
“Shiviti” in the form of a menorah, from the Iraq-Iran region, 19th century or early 20th century. Amulet written on parchment, to be kept inside a prayerbook and meant to protect its owner. Psalm 67 is written in the form of a seven-branched candelabrum (menorah), below the verse “I have set the L-rd before me always” (Psalm 16:8).
Binding for a single document
Samples of Photograph Restoration
Conservation of Albumen prints. From course at Preus Museum, Norway, on photograph conservation.
