Objects Conservation Fellows

Ahmed Tarek was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Objects Conservation to gain experience with general museum conservation practice. While he will focus on works from the Egyptian Art collection, he also aims to expand his experience through the examination, treatment and analysis of works from Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas.

Aidi Bao was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Objects Conservation to study the use and conservation of historical Asian long zither instruments, especially Chinese guqin, in a transcultural context by combining art conservation, scientific analysis, and material cultural history.

Chaehoon Lee was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Conservation Fellowship. Her work focused on the conservation and treatment of traditional East-Asian musical instruments with a typical scorched surface finish called Nakdong. This finishing technique can be found in Asian string instruments like the Korean geomungo and gayageum, Chinese zheng, and Japanese koto.

Chantal Stein was awarded an Annette de la Renta Fellowship. She focused mostly on objects from the Egyptian, Ancient Near Eastern and African Art collections, including the treatment and technical investigation of an impressively large bronze statue of the goddess Wadjet and a Yoruba Figure for Osanyin Priest. Chantal applied her Multiband imaging skills in identifying traces of original pigments on ancient ivories in the Museum’s Ancient Near Eastern collection as well as the stone reliefs in the Assyrian Sculpture Court. The new information she obtained will be incorporated in catalogue entries and new labels after these galleries are renovated.

Julia was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Conservation Fellowship. She worked predominantly on the examination and treatment of objects in the Egyptian Art collection. One of her projects centered around the Cartonnage of a Woman for which she carried out a full technical study, conservation treatment, and the fabrication of an innovative internal support structure using photogrammetry and 3D modeling. The research on this cartonnage case will be included in a forthcoming publication co-authored by Julia, conservator Anna Serotta, and curator Janice Kamrin.

Danijela was awarded a Sherman Fairchild Foundation Conservation Fellowship during which she worked on innovative loss compensation techniques for Egyptian alabaster vessels as well as the examination and treatment of Ancient Near Eastern metal objects. Her work on the complete retreatment of a South-Arabian incense burner dated to the eighth–seventh century BCE resulted in a paper that was presented at the 2019 ICOM-CC Metals Conference: “Redressing the Past: The Examination and Treatment of an Ancient South Arabian Censer,” with J-F de Lapérouse, F. Carò, and A. Rizzo.

The success of Catherine's first year in Objects Conservation resulted in a second fellowship, concentrating solely on japanned furniture from Boston, MA and its European counterparts in the Museum’s collections. A successful survey resulted in a thorough documentation of the techniques and materials used by various artists working in this unique fashion. Cathy also published a paper on this project with scientists Adriana Rizzo and Federico Carò in Studies in Conservation in 2019. After leaving The Met, Cathy headed to Yale University Art Gallery, initially working as project conservator for the move of the Furniture Study Collection, before joining the gallery in a permanent capacity as assistant conservator of furniture and objects in 2020.

Cathy Silverman was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Conservation Fellowship based on her strong interest in both authentic Asian lacquer work, and its Western imitation, japanning. The year was divided between four supervisors, having her focus on American and British furniture, as well as lacquer on musical instruments and a Chinese folding screen.

Tong Tong was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Conservation Fellowship. Her research focused on a fourteenth-century Yuan dynasty Buddhist wall painting in The Met’s collection. Through research travel, most notably to the Nelson Atkins Museum in Kansas City, Tong Tong gathered information on sister wall paintings from the same monastery that will be used when the Met’s wall painting is examined, documented, conserved. Tong Tong also conserved objects ranging from amber to porcelain. Her treatment of a carved amber cup using Regalrez (non-polar hydrocarbon resin) was the continuation of work begun and published by a previous fellow, Linda Lin.

Amanda was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Conservation Fellowship. She focused on the reintroduction of paint to a mid-nineteenth-century American stained-glass window which was later presented at the 10th Forum for the Conservation and Technology of Stained Glass, Cambridge, 3-5 Sept 2017.

Parviz was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship during which he developed his non-invasive archaeometric skills and took full advantage of access to the Museum’s Ancient Near East and Islamic collections. His work lead to three publications: “Early Islamic pigments at Nishapur, north-eastern Iran: Studies on the painted fragments preserved at The Metropolitan Museum of Art,” with J-F de Lapérouse, F. Carò and Martina Rugiadi in Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, pp. 21; “Glaze Composition of the Iron Age Glazed Ceramics from Nimrud, Hasanlu and Borsippa Preserved at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.” with J-F de Lapérouse and F. Carò in Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 16 (December 2017), pp. 224–32; and “Non-invasive Scientific Studies on the Provenance and Technology of Early Islamic Ceramics from Afrasiyab and Nishapur” with J-F de Lapérouse, F. Carò, S. Röhrs, U. Franke, M. Müller-Wiener, and I. Reiche. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 24 (2019), pp. 759–72.