(by Stacy Davis, Biology Team)

(photo: the SCIART group in front of the Met)

This past week the SCIART biology, chemistry and engineering groups had the opportunity to travel to New York City and visit the conservation science departments of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) and the Bard Graduate Center. 

At The Met, students were guided through the different labs of the conservation science department. We had the opportunity to meet and Dr. Eric Breitung, who studies the environment around pieces of art and how they interact. We were able to see images of glass produced by an electron scanning microscope thanks to Dr. Mark Wypyski.  

Dr. Federica Pozzi shared information on spectrometry commonly used in art conservation and informing us of a great new program that allows for collaboration between The Met and other museums nearby that do not have conservation science departments within their museums.  We then learned about organic analysis of different resins using MALDI and mass spectrometry.  Last, we spoke with Dr. Federico Carò, a geologist who uses different methods like x-ray diffraction and x-ray fluorescence to analyze art. 

After our time at the conservation science department of The Met, we made our way to the Bard Graduate Center to hear from Dr. Jennifer Mass.  Here we got to learn about a lot of very interesting cases regarding authenticity of art pieces.  As well as learning about analyzing art using scientific approaches, we heard about the history of Pablo Picasso's painting, "The Blue Room," and the story of the discovery of another painting beneath it.