Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

We have used MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry to characterize a selection of dyes from the Schweppe dye collection and pigments from the Tate Gallery collection. MALDI-TOF mass spectra of such samples are easily obtained and, through observation of both positive and negative ion spectra, provide a convenient, versatile method for dye characterization and identification. Such pairs of positive and negative ion spectra immediately distinguish between acidic and basic dyes and provide the characteristic mass of either the molecular ion or a simply related fragment ion. This approach is especially useful in situations where very small amounts of analyte are available, as in museum research and forensic analysis. In the case of textile dyes, we have carried out identification on material from single fibers and, with insoluble pigments, have begun to identify components of historically important pastel sticks from submicrogram samples.

Abstract

Recent advances in the study of natural products made by bacteria have laid the foundation for engineering these molecules and for developing cost-effective ways to manufacture them. In our lab, we study a number of natural products that are synthesized by harmless soil bacteria of the Streptomyces genus. Whereas our primary interest in these molecules is due to their antibiotic properties, many of these natural products have distinct colors [1]. (The reasons for why Streptomyces make antibiotics or pigments remain mysterious.) This article is intended to make the case to the scientific and educational communities that Streptomyces-derived natural products are an untapped source of useful biopigments. By sharing some of our own experiences in harnessing these pigments to create paint and paintings, we also hope to inspire others to explore the potential of Streptomyces-derived pigments in art, industry, and perhaps most importantly, the classroom. The pedagogical value of bacterial pigments is highlighted by the wide range of concepts and methods in chemistry, biology, and art that can be introduced to students in this context (see Box 1). Teachers can incorporate bacterial pigments into their lessons while introducing fundamental scientific principles ranging from the physics of color to the chemistry behind paints that fade in sunlight. Painting with living bacteria (Box 2) or extracting pigments from bacterial cultures (Box 3) provides a visual and kinesthetic activity to support key aspects of scientific investigations and methods learned in the classroom. Because the methods to do so are safe, inexpensive, and easily implementable in the everyday world, it is possible to use biopigments as a vehicle to introduce school children to science via art and vice versa. While many of these concepts and techniques are appropriate for the advanced high school or undergraduate classroom, even elementary school children can use bacterial paints prepared by their teacher to create art, an activity that may teach children at a young age that bacteria are a source of valuable materials rather than merely agents of disease. Box 1: Concepts at a Glance Leads into chemistry, microbiology, and biotechnology Chemical composition of paint (solubility and states of matter)¥, ‡ Structures of pigment molecules (electromagnetic radiation, electron configuration, valence bonds, molecular orbital theory)‡ Culturing Streptomyces and extracting their pigments (sterile culture techniques, natural product extraction techniques, solubility)‡ Painting Streptomyces on agar plates (bacterial growth control)¥,‡ Engineering bacteria to make new pigments (metabolic engineering of microbial systems)‡ Scaling up the production of bacterial pigments (large scale bioprocessing techniques, recombinant DNA technology)‡ UV absorber and radical scavengers as additives to paints (chemical structure and reactivity, radical reactions)‡ Leads into fine arts The perception of color (electromagnetic radiation, the eye as a spectrometer)¥, ‡ Paint constituents (pigments, binders, solvents, surfactants, additives)‡ Sources of pigments‡ Making paints from pigments (grinding pigments, suspending in binder)¥, ‡ History of pigments (art history)*, ¥, ‡ Fun stuff Drawing on paper with bacteria-derived paint*, ¥, ‡ Creating living art by painting with bacteria on agar medium*, ¥, ‡ ‡ = for undergraduate or advanced placement high school courses; ¥ = for high school courses; * = for elementary school courses

As part of a project designed to systematically identify colorants on Japanese woodblock prints, excitation–emission matrix (EEM), or three-dimensional, fluorescence spectroscopy, equipped with a fiber optic probe, was used to characterize natural yellow and red organic colorants on 18th-century Japanese prints without taking samples. This analysis technique collected emission spectra in the visible region for a sequence of excitation wavelengths at 10 nm steps from 250 to 600 nm. The resultant data set provided characteristic excitation/emission patterns that were used to identify several natural colorants, including safflower, madder, sappanwood, gamboge, flavonoids, berberines, and turmeric. In combination with other non-sampling methodologies, including x-ray fluorescence and fiber optic reflectance spectroscopy, most colorants on the prints were quickly and non-destructively characterized. Based on examination of 213 prints, several patterns of colorant use were observed. The prints often contained more than one yellow, red, or blue colorant. From 1781 to 1801, considered the Golden Age of the Japanese print, it was common to find multiple types of yellows, reds, and blues on a single print. The colorant madder was identified on many of the prints, while gardenia and berberine-containing dyes were found on none. This paper presents the theory, experimental parameters, and limitations of the EEM fluorescence technique. The technique is illustrated using the analysis results of four Japanese woodblock prints.

This study investigates the efficacy of a sampling technique to acquire sufficient sample for peptide mass fingerprinting analysis (PMF) with minimal alteration to photograph surfaces. The technique, which is potentially useful for sampling surface coatings in a wide variety of situations, uses very fine polishing film (1–30 μm particles, 14,000–600 grit) to abrade and remove small amounts of surface material consistent with PMF sample requirements. Several variations of sampling devices were evaluated using coated salt print mock-ups and study collection photographs. This paper discusses those evaluations, proposes an optimized system for sampling thin, proteinaceous coatings for PMF analysis, and cites criteria for deciding whether using the sampling technique is warranted and/or advisable in certain cases.

A native South American phenolic resin commonly called mopa mopa was used for many centuries in two cultural contexts, by artisans in the region of Pasto, Colombia (where it is still used), and by the Inka in Peru, where it was used to decorate ceremonial drinking cups known as qeros. It was softened to a rubbery state by heating in water, mixed with colorants, stretched into thin layers and applied as inlay to decorate wooden surfaces of various kinds of objects. The resin comes from trees of the genus Elaeagia, which grows in mountainous regions of western South America from Colombia to Ecuador. Botanical specimens from the two species that are the most likely sources of mopa mopa, Elaeagia pastoensis and Elaeagia utilis, were analyzed along with samples from colonial period objects made in Pasto and samples from Inka qeros. Species-specific identification of the resin is often possible, with E. pastoensis being utilized in Pasto and (probably) E. utilis by the Inka. This conclusion has important implications for the possible connection between the use of mopa mopa in the two widely separated areas.

Abstract Applied tin‐relief brocade (commonly called applied brocade) refers to a decorative painting technique using tin leaf applied over a supporting relief mass (filling) which is glued to the artwork to simulate gold and silver textile brocades. This originated in Germany ca 1415–1430 and spread across Europe from the mid‐15th century to the mid‐16th century. This study focuses on six early 16th century altarpieces in the Basque country in the present province of Guipúzcoa, Spain. Cross sections of the ground and applied brocade were initially examined with optical microscopy and staining tests for proteins and lipids to assess the layering structure and materials present. Further examination with Raman spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X‐ray spectroscopy identified the inorganic and organic components of the various layers. Raman spectroscopic mapping was used to image the location of phases in selected cross sections. Five altarpieces from Spain had calcium sulfate grounds, whereas one thought to come from Flanders had a calcium carbonate ground. Raman and FTIR spectra showed that the thick, coarse lower ground layer ( yeso grueso ) is anhydrous calcium sulfate (anhydrite) whereas the fine, thin upper ground layer ( yeso fino ) is calcium sulfate dihydrate (gypsum). The filling masses consisted of different mixtures of inorganic (chiefly gypsum or anhydrite but occasionally with other pigments or additives) and organic (protein and/or oil or beeswax) materials. Comparison of the documented historical techniques with the materials found provides insight into local variations of the technique. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This issue of Simulation in Healthcare sees the publication of its first peer-reviewed dedicated supplement to the Journal. This supplement provides 11 seminal monographs on different topics and aspects of “Simulation Research,” resulting from the Society for Simulation in Healthcare (SSH) Research Summit that immediately preceded the January 2011 International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare. The Summit was organized and run roughly along the lines of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Consensus Conference, as described by the NIH Consensus Development Program (CDP – see http://consensus.nih.gov/aboutcdp.htm for more information about the model promulgated by the NIH CDP). Ten topics were defined for the Summit, and experts in the field were recruited to be workgroup leaders for each. Each workgroup prepared a presummit working paper; presented the key elements at the Summit; deliberated with Summit attendees in breakout groups (ranging in size from 15 to 150 people); and then incorporated feedback from the groups, the plenary discussions, and postsummit scholarship into final versions of these monographs. These articles thus represent the best thinking by some of the Society's best people, bolstered by the collective wisdom of others with experience and interest in simulation research. We are pleased to provide these detailed monographs and a synthesis by the Summit organizers. The supplement should stand alone as a milestone document in the field. My goal in this editorial is not to recapitulate either the synthesis or the material in the monographs but to highlight the importance of this work and to encourage everyone in the field of simulation in healthcare to start thinking strategically about the future of simulation research. The Summit reviewed the state of the field in a variety of aspects of research about simulation or using simulation as a tool. It follows on an Utstein-style experts workshop on research priorities that was held last year in Europe, convened jointly by the Society in Europe for Simulation Applied to Medicine and SSH, the results of which were summarized in the June 2011 issue of this Journal.1 Most of the workgroups in the SSH Summit (and from the Utstein-style meeting) identified major gaps in the research base that need to be filled to move the field forward most productively and to best inform the public and policy makers about the relevant roles of simulation in health care. That there are gaps in the literature comes as no shock. First, there has only been a relatively short time of research, development, and implementation of simulation techniques to healthcare. Although some elements of simulation go back decades, and simulation use and research much as we know it today started 25 years ago, only the last 5 to 10 years have seen rapid growth in its use and an explosion in published simulation research. Second, simulation research is hard. As an educational intervention, simulation is almost always more labor-intensive than “usual practice.” Access to the learner population is often as difficult as is providing the simulator, space, and trained instructors to do the teaching. Simulators themselves, although no longer incredibly expensive, are not cheap. Providing experienced personnel to operate simulators and conduct simulation-based training or clinical interventions is expensive. Finally, although it is possible to measure some relevant outcomes in studies of modest size, many important questions may take much larger and longer studies, the funders for which have yet to be found. Among the many cogent messages to come from, the Summit is a call for more rigorous research. The Journal itself has been raising the bar as to what constitutes publishable research; purely descriptive studies or studies with weak outcome measures rarely measure up unless they report something that is highly novel. One influential result of the Summit is a detailed articulation of simulation research as “translational science” with phases of translation analogous to those promulgated for traditional biomedical research linking laboratory “bench to bedside.” Various articulations of levels of translational research have been promulgated2,3 (Translational Research Working Group, National Cancer Society, http://www.cancer.gov/researchandfunding/trwg/TRWG-definition-and-TR-continuum) and their applicability to education research was noted by William McGaghie.4 Of note, the T-level definitions differ widely between the various sources cited earlier in the text. The monograph by McGaghie et al5 from the Summit describes three levels of simulation translational research: T1 (measurements in the educational laboratory), T2 (patient care practices), and T3 (improved patient and public health), and at the workshop, they also discussed a level of treatment value or cost savings (T3—cost-effectiveness). Some translational research paradigms describe even higher levels: —T4 (dissemination—can it be done by others?) T5 (adoption—will others use it?) and T6 (population health impact). As documented in the Summit monograph, only a few studies at T2 and T3 levels or beyond have been performed. The report calls for programs of simulation research at these levels rather than being satisfied with the T1 level or below. Yet, such translational research will remain difficult to conduct. Many of the most important questions at T2 and beyond may require determining whether institutions can systematically provide better patient care and outcomes when they provide comprehensive, continuous training for healthcare providers as individuals, teams, and work units, across all disciplines and domains, linked to performance assessment and process change, executed over a long period of time.6–8 This is what we have come to expect from simulation in high-hazard industries such as commercial aviation, albeit they cannot prove—with T3 level evidence—that simulation saves lives or airplanes, in part because pilots would be unwilling to be in the control group. Hence, we have a hard but necessary road ahead, and obtaining the needed resources to travel this road will not be easy. The Research Summit opens the door to views of the next phases of the simulation endeavor. The findings summarized in the Supplement provide a basis for the coming years, and this document should be read and disseminated widely. In the future, it is likely that we will need to mobilize yet larger resources to provide more definitive answers to the big questions about simulation. As we do so, we will need to articulate more fully the key themes and questions and to demonstrate the linkage between them and our projects. In the coming months, I shall have more to say about how we might organize to bring the visions of the Summit to fruition and to convince policy makers of the need to fund the long-term research agenda.

This project grew from discussions concerning the environmental impact of museum and cultural institution activities. Life cycle assessment was the chosen tool to address pressing questions around this topic. Three life cycle assessment case studies were commissioned for this project. Case Study 1 considered the materials and environmental impact related to loan preparation and shipment of a single crate to two different venues. Plexiglas™ vitrines, gallery lighting, and climate controls were responsible for approximately one-third of the carbon emissions from the exhibition preparation phase. Crate and Plexiglas™ reuse as few as four times would significantly lower the loan carbon impact. The highest environmental impact of all loan phases proved to be the carbon foot print of the courier who travels two round trips for every loan round trip and has more than three times the impact of the art transport. Case Study 2 compared efficiencies of the cost and life cycle of halogen lamps with light emitting diode lamps in a single Museum of Fine Arts gallery. This study concluded that in addition to long-term cost savings, light emitting diode use results in lower environmental impact, lower eco-toxicity, and fewer human health indicators than halogen lamps. Case Study 3 addressed cost and energy savings resulting from the temporary shutdown of air handling equipment for one newly constructed gallery at the Museum of Fine Arts.

The identification of dyes is important in research on museum artefacts as well as in forensic applications. UV-visible absorption spectroscopy cannot unambiguously distinguish dyes with similar hues, while mass spectrometry may fail to distinguish isobaric dyes. The detailed patterns produced by 3D fluorescence spectroscopy appear to be virtually unique, even among dyes that are closely related positional isomers. We report these patterns for 65 dyes from the Schweppe Library of Synthetic Organic Dyes as well as measurements suggesting both the capabilities and limitations of this method.

Abstract: Ardelia Ripley Hall (1899–1979) served from 1946 until 1962 as the Fine Arts and Monuments Adviser to the U.S. Department of State. In this role she oversaw the recovery and restitution of movable cultural property that had been displaced during the Second World War. In spite of her vast accomplishments, almost nothing has been written on Ardelia Hall, and little is known about her life. She began her career at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, but personal circumstances led to her resignation in 1941. During the war, she was employed by the Office of Strategic Services. The expertise she established as an art historian working with the Roberts Commission at this time led to her appointment at the State Department in 1946. This essay traces for the first time Hall’s remarkable journey from curatorial researcher to adviser on international art restitution.

Many Greek and Roman sculptures in the Louvre appear to be made of coarse-grained, very white dolomitic marble from the north Aegean island of Thasos, and permission was given to test twelve of them in a non-destructive way using a mobile X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometer. Coarse-grained, white dolomitic marble sources were rare in antiquity, and if these Thasian-looking sculptures proved to be dolomitic rather than calcitic, it is highly likely that they were in fact made of Thasian marble. Ten of the twelve sculptures did prove to be dolomitic marble and therefore very probably Thasian in origin. This new information makes it possible to expand and enrich our knowledge of the exportation of marble from Thasos in both geographic and chronological terms. The tests furthermore confirm that dolomitic marble from Thasos was preferred for colossal replicas of Athena of the Velletri type and also reveal that a group of imperial portraits in Algeria were carved from marble blocks from Thasos. One test offered confirmation that a fragment in the Louvre was part of a relief in Izmir.

modern California Indians, although no comparative study has yet been made by a specially trained craniologist.It is not vossible i n the case of the Hawver Cave relics to prove Quaternary age for the human bones.As i n the other instances mentioned, the inference is, however, that the date of their entombment preceded the present day by centuries, if not by injllenniums.IFarchitecture is the king of the fine arts, commanding the outward services of others, music is their queen, imposing the inward laws by which all rule .themselves.The notions of harmony, pitch, scale, tonal it^ and key, applied i n fine a r t generally, have in music first become clear enough to receive names.The theory of all the arts awaits to this day the exact grasp of these ideas which the investigation of nlusical structure will some time give.

Abstract Before the start of its restoration in 2007, the Salvator Mundi was thought to be one of a number of copies of a long-lost Leonardo da Vinci painting, depicting Christ giving a blessing with his right hand while holding a crystal orb in his left. During the restoration treatment, a scientific examination of the painting was carried out to elucidate the painting’s materials and techniques. Microscopic sampling of the painting was necessarily limited, and nine out of ten samples were prepared and analyzed as cross-sections. A number of analytical methods were employed selectively, including stereomicroscopy, visible and fluorescent light microscopy, scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive spectroscopy, Raman microspectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared microspectroscopy in transmission mode and with attenuated total reflection. The pigments characterized were lead white, vermilion, red iron oxide earth, red lake, natural ultramarine, lead–tin yellow, umber, and charcoal, carbon and bone blacks. Manganese-containing soda-lime glass was detected in the ground, imprimitura and paint layers, and a walnut oil medium was identified by pyrolysis gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Cross-section studies revealed aspects of the painting’s stratigraphy: a size layer, white ground and off-white imprimitura , followed by a complex sequence of paint layers applied by the artist to achieve sophisticated visual effects.

The unusual resin from some species of Elaeagia, a genus now found in certain parts of Central America and South America, was probably first utilized by native peoples in Colombia more than a thousand years ago. It became a crucial part of often elaborately decorated objects made in the southwestern city of Pasto in the colonial period, and it has continued to be used there up to the present, in which it is at the core of a local craft tradition. The resin was also utilized for about 300 years by the Inka, mainly to decorate qeros (ceremonial drinking cups). The resin is often referred to as mopa-mopa and, specifically in Colombia, as barniz de Pasto. The botany, chemistry, properties, and analysis of Elaeagia resin are reviewed, along with a brief survey of the history of its use.

Early in the Third Dynasty, King Djoser employed the genius of his architect Imhotep to erect the first great building of stone, the Step Pyramid at Saqqara. The name Djoser, written in a cartouche, has not been found in an inscription of the Old Kingdom. On his own monuments the king writes his Horus-name, Netjerykhet. There is no doubt that these two names refer to the same man. The wall scribblings of the Eighteenth Dynasty visitors to the Step Pyramid refer to the temple of Djoser and both names occur, together with the name of Imhotep, in the Ptolemaic inscription, on the Island of Siheil near the First Cataract. The legendary character of Imhotep, who was revered centuries after his death as a demi-god, the builder of the temple of Edfu, the wise chancellor, architect and physician of Djoser, has now acquired reality through the discovery of his name on a statue-base of Netjerykhet in the excavations of the Step Pyramid. It is curious that modern research should, within a short space of time, have established the identity of both the wise men of whom centuries later the harper of King Inyotef sings: 'I have heard the sayings of Imhotep and Hordedef with whose words men speak so often. What are their habitations now? Their walls are destroyed, their habitations are no more, as if they had never been.' The tomb of Hordedef, with the inscriptions in its chapel maliciously erased but still partly readable was found at Giza, east of the pyramid of his father Cheops, at a time when the excavation of the elaborate series of structures erected at Saqqara by Imhotep was still in progress.

Science × art collaborations can effectively convey scientific insights to a wide audience. Throughout history, art has interpreted the natural world, offering vast, underexplored sources of biodiversity data. These artistic efforts also hold potential as valuable tools for understanding biodiversity.

Oaxacan urns, the most characteristic esthetic expression of Zapotec culture in ancient Mesoamerica, are an important potential source of information for archaeologists and art historians, but relatively few exist with specific archaeological context and many are suspect as forgeries. This paper reports the thermoluminescent authenticity determinations of over one hundred Oaxacan urns as a first step toward confirmining a sequence previously determined by stylistic analysis. We tested a collection of 117 urns on loan to the St Louis Art Museum, mostly acquired after 1960, and another group of 6 from the Peabody Museum, Harvard, acquired before 1930. Our hypothesis that more recent collections would contain fewer forgeries was confirmed and a number of stylistic criteria for determining authenticity are critically examined in the light of the results.

Some of the most elaborate and detailed descriptions of early Christian churches by a Latin writer are given by the nobleman Pontius Meropius Paulinus, who is usually known as Paulinus of Nola, after the city where he became bishop in the latter part of his life. He was born in Bordeaux around 353, of a wealthy family that had extensive properties in Aquitania, Gallia Narbonensis, Latium, and Campania. He received an education appropriate to his noble stature and became the prize student of Ausonius, also a native of Bordeaux, who was the tutor of the (future) emperor Gratian and a celebrated poet at court.

Examples of research on ancient Indian stone artefacts utilizing petrographic examination coupled with qualitative and quantitative electron beam microprobe analysis of specific minerals are described. Types of artefacts discussed include Gandharan schist sculptures. Pala dynasty phyllite and schist objects from eastern India, Hoysala sculptures from Karnataka state (southern India), and sandstone objects from northern India. In spite of the rich history of stone sculpture in the Indian subcontinent, characterization studies to date have been limited in scope, typically involving unprovenanced artefacts. The examples described point to areas in which more extensive research could produce useful information for the provenancing of artefacts.