MORE LEADS

Explore these links to learn more about the examination, testing and authentication of paintings.

Online

Cybermuse: Art Preserves
National Gallery of Canada
Guided case studies of methods to detect repairs, inpainting, overpainting. Includes before-and-after, intermediate images. Look for "Features to Note" and "Revealing the Details."

Investigating the Renaissance
Harvard University Art Museum
Examines three paintings via multiple investigative methods, e.g., x-ray or infrared. Examination and analysis goes down to microscopy of paint layers.

Investigating Bellini's Feast of the Gods
Highly interactive scientific investigation of evidence of multiple painters. Reviews stylistic context, analysis, deconstruction, and pigment. "Zoom" feature shows what was taken out (or put in).

Moran
National Gallery of Art
Engaging online exhibit about Thomas Moran's life and works.

Smithsonian: Ask Joan of Art!
Art information specialists answer your art questions. This service is limited to American visual art and artists. (The Smithsonian does not give monetary appraisals of artwork.)

The Phildadelphia Print Shop
offers good lessons in chromolithographs.

PBS Links

Antiques Roadshow: Finding out Whodunit
More stories from the Roadshow in New York in 2002.

Antiques Roadshow - Real or Fake?
Wes Cowan provides a few tips to make sure you avoid wasting your money on less-than-authentic photographs.

Ken Burns: Civil War: Telling Details
Take an opportunity to explore our nation's history. Select an image and find details of the photo.

American Experience: Ansel Adams: Inside a View Camera (144k) Requires Flash.
Explore a view camera in this interactive demonstration, featuring photographs of Faneuil Hall, the Boston landmark where 18th-century colonists held Revolutionary meetings.

Masterpiece Theater | Shooting The Past
More about the Library of Congress 650 plus photographs in its daguerreotype collection, dating from 1839 to 1864.

Antiques Roadshow - Chromolithographs
Learn more about chromolithographs

Downloads

Chronology of Photographic Processes
National Park Service, Conserv-O-Gram #14-03

Identification of Film Base Photographic Materials
National Park Service, Conserv-O-Gram #14-09

In Print

Art Information and the Internet: How to Find It, How to Use It, Lois Swan Jones, Oryx Press, 1999.

Authenticity in Art: The Scientific Detection of Forgery, Stuart J. Fleming, Crane, Rusak and Company, 1976.

The Care and Identification of 19th Century Photographic Prints, James M. Reilly, Saunders PhotoGraphic, 1986.

False Impressions: The Hunt for Big-Time Art Fakes, Thomas Hoving, Simon & Schuster, 1996.

How to Identify Prints: A Complete Guide to Manual and Mechanical Processes from Woodcut to Ink-Jet, Bamber Gascoigne, Thames and Hudson, Inc., 1995.

Labs

Image Permanence Institute Rochester Institute of Technology
Tests for photographic image stability, film deterioration and enclosure quality, Photographic Activity Test (PAT). World's largest independent lab with this particular scope.
Rochester, NY 585.475.5199

Applied Consumer Services, Inc.
Paint, paper, wood, textile analysis; concrete/stucco analysis; mineral analysis; paint and varnish analysis; material testing.
Hialeah Gardens, FL 800.371.5854

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Conservation Dept.
Organic coatings, paint, films, pigments, fillers, metal corrosion products, ceramic and stone degradation products.
Philadelphia, PA 215.763.8100; 215.684.7540

Williamstown Art Conservation Center
Analysis of cross-section, thin-section, particle/fiber samples from paint, coating, gilding, and other layers of historical objects and architectural surfaces. Emphasis on interpretation, authentication and dating.
Williamstown, MA 413.458.5741