How was it made? What are the materials? Is it authentic? How much was it restored or repaired, and when? These are some of the questions posed by museum curators who must decide on conservation or exhibition strategies.
"Science in the Art Museum" explores how curators, conservators, art historians, and scientists work together to extract technological and historical information from objects.
When an object's documentation is incomplete, curators and conservators must do additional research. Increasingly, they turn to outside experts in the natural sciences for assistance. Questions of composition, provenence, technology, authenticity, and dating are investigated using modern analytical techniques such as X-ray radiography and scanning electron microscopy. The technical data are then integrated with stylistic and iconographical information to provide a more complete picture of an object and its transformation from raw material to finished product. For such interdisciplinary research to succeed, close communication between the different specialists is essential. Science rarely provides all the answers to the questions posed. Instead, the analytical process begins a dialogue about what is possible and often points investigators in new directions.
This project is an ongoing collaboration between Krannert Art Museum, the Program on Ancient Technologies and Archaeological Materials (ATAM), and several other departments at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Some of the analyses featured below appeared in a conservation exhibit at the Krannert Art Museum in the spring of 1996.
This is a older version of the original site on the museum server