Solar Enlargement or photo of one?

In the 1970's, just out of high school, I traveled to the Southern US with my granddad and we spent a few months visiting all the relatives. When visiting the old people, I'd get them to bring out their old photos, and I would take photographic copies with my dad's Minolta camera and macro lens. I'm glad I did, because I fear many have not survived the passing of two generations.
While there, I was given a crudely framed 15x19 inch enlargement of photos of my great grandfather and his brother. They both died young, one in the first decade of the 1900's and the other in the early 1890's. I'm trying to figure out if that enlargement is an original solar enlargement made at the time, or a photographic enlargement made later (maybe a photo of a solar enlargement)? How can I tell?
The reason I'm not sure, is that it all looks like a photo - it doesn't look like charcoal or other drawing material has been applied, but the shoulders and lapels look touched up/drawn. Among the photos I took back then was one that is clearly a crayon portrait (included further down). This photo I'm wondering about is like a cross between that and a straight up photograph. My other question is how do I conserve this? It's yellowing, and fading, in addition to water damage from before when I had it. It's like a thin sheet of paper attached to thick card stock. It's staring to decompose at the edges. In its frame it was backed by common cardboard, which I've removed recently since that's likely not helping things.

Front and back of the enlargement I'm asking about. The lighting was not good. It's not as yellow in life as in these images.


When I made copies of photos, among them were the original photos that appear on the enlargement above. Here is the photo the left hand man is based on.



This is the copy I made of the crayon portrait and the portion of a group photo of a large family on which it was based. You can see that it's mostly drawing, whereas the one at the top of my post is mostly photograph. They happen to be the parents of the two men in the first photo.



I'm pretty sure all the photos I've shown are from the late 1880's to mid 1890's.

 

Here is an article that explains the techniques of solar enlargements:
http://resources.culturalheritage.org/pmgtopics/2005-volume-eleven/11_14_Whitman.pdf

It seems likely that both your first image, as well as the crayon portrait, are solar enlargements. Different methods of retouching/enhancing were used. The process was most popular between the 1880s and the 1930s.

As for their conservation, the best approach might be to simply place them in large archival folders or a box designed for photographic materials. Light Impressions is a company that specializes in archival materials for care of photographs:
http://www.lightimpressionsdirect.com/
Removing them from their backing boards would be a delicate, and probably expensive, process best left to a professional conservator.

 

Just a word of caution. Light Impressions used to be a good company. Years ago now (maybe 10 years?) something changed. I ordered from them, which I had done before. Paid online, and I never received the items. They never answered many requests for information. Silly me, I tried again a year or two later. I liked their products. Same thing happened!! Item never received, company would not communicate. "Fool me once, shame on you... fool me twice, shame on me."

Since then I've bought archival material from Gaylord and another company whose name I don't remember right now.

Oh, and I agree with @2manybooks about the first one being a solar enlargement, at least from what I can see in the online pictures.

 

@Figtree3 - thanks for relating your experience. I've purchased from Gaylord before when I got a bunch of archival supplies for various paper and ephemera things I have. I was happy with them except shipping is a killer unless you order a fair amount of stuff. I had not heard of Light Impressions before, and was happy to hear of another source, but will be cautious of them now.

 

Thanks for that warning about Light Impressions. It has been awhile since I have dealt with them. Some other archival suppliers are:
https://www.universityproducts.com/
http://www.conservationresources.com/
https://www.hollingermetaledge.com/

I liked dealing with Light Impressions for photographs because there are particular requirements for safe storage of photos that they catered to. Specifically, you want to look for "unbuffered" storage materials and avoid "buffered", which most archival papers are. High pH (buffered) materials can adversely affect photographic emulsions over time. For photographs, it is generally better to select neutral pH/unbuffered materials.

 

At the time that Light Impressions changed, they made a big move from the East coast of the US to the West coast. Maybe there was different management?

Thanks for the information about the unbuffered and buffered materials, @2manybooks . I haven't paid enough attention to that in the past. I liked the album pages that Light Impressions had. The sizes were perfect and there were other things that I liked. I keep many of my photos in albums with plastic sleeves for the photos. The albums are just 3-ring binders that these sorts of companies sell. I liked the size and quality of the ones that Light Impressions sold. Gaylord is pretty good, too, though. And I remembered the other company from whom I've purchased in recent years. PrintFile -- https://printfile.com/ . I found a page for at least one type of paper enclosure that they offer in both buffered and unbuffered versions: https://printfile.com/product-categ...es/paper-enclosures/flap-envelopes-long-side/

Here is another type: https://printfile.com/product-category/protective-enclosures/paper-enclosures/print-envelopes/

I'm not sure what sorts of products you use, @2manybooks but you could look around their site and see what you think.