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Three-dimensional works of art provoke viewers to contemplate volume and contour, but it is the surfaces of these works, with their colors, textures, and finishes, that most compellingly contribute to our visual experience. Articles in the current issue of met objectives illustrate several of the material aspects of surfaces that engage conservators. A comparison of blue paint layers on three French thirteenth-century polychrome sculptures reveals the varying degrees of purity and different methods of applying natural ultramarine, a pigment that became popular in Europe at that time. A Herter Brothers upholstered side chair with flake-gold finish, and an Indian seventeenth-century "mixed media" qalamdan are presented as the focus of visual and instrumental analyses, highlighting the importance of investigating surviving surfaces in order to understand and, when appropriate, evoke original appearances. A study of the deterioration of archaeological copper alloy surfaces and a consideration of artificial patinas illustrate how specificity of corrosion products and structure plays an important role in the authentication of ancient bronzes.
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Mixed Media: An Islamic Writing Cabinet
In 1998, the Islamic Art Department acquired a wooden writing cabinet—qalamdan in Persian—produced in India during the mid-seventeenth century, when Muslim rule within the country was divided between the Mughal Empire in the north and smaller kingdoms of the Deccan in the south. Continue
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The Oddy Test Improved
Museums go to great lengths to monitor and regulate the environments in which works of art are displayed, stored, and transported. While many of the variables that affect preservation are considered on a gallery- or museum-wide scale, microenvironments in exhibition cases, packing crates, and storage containers also require oversight. Continue
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The Use of Lapis Lazuli as a Pigment in Medieval Europe
In recent years, studies of historical trends in the use of color have focused on the increasing popularity of blue in Europe during the twelfth century. Notably, Michel Pastoureau, in Bleu, histoire d'une couleur, demonstrates that blue appeared more frequently on stained glass, sculpture, paintings, and illuminated manuscripts, but also in secular contexts, on royal emblems, banners, and ordinary textiles and clothing. Continue
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Preserving a Herter Brothers Side Chair
During the second half of the nineteenth century the design of American furniture enjoyed a phase of extraordinary creativity. While the preceding years had witnessed a succession of historicizing European styles, interiors of the Gilded Age were highly eclectic, freely mixing stylistic elements from a much larger repertoire of cultural sources. Continue
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The Characterization of Artificial Bronze Patinas
The composition and structure of corrosion products are important criteria in evaluating the authenticity of historical bronzes, and for this reason naturally-occurring copper corrosion products have frequently been the subject of scientific investigation. On the other hand, less attention has been paid to artificially induced corrosion, despite a well-documented, legitimate tradition for the patination of bronze statuary, and increasingly sophisticated efforts by forgers of antiquities to produce credible "archaeological" surfaces. Continue
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New Scientist in Charge
Tony Frantz, Conservator in Charge, is leaving the Sherman Fairchild Center for Objects Conservation in August 2003 to become Research Scientist in the Museum's newly established science group. Continue
Lawrence Becker has been appointed to the new position of Sherman Fairchild Conservator in Charge. Continue
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