Archiving Findings From Technical Examinations Experiences at the Harvard University Art Museums Ron Spronk Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies Harvard University Art Museums

The Fogg Art Museum, built in 1927, situation after the renovation of the Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies in 1996.

Edward W. Forbes, George L. Stout,

R. John Gettens, Alan Burroughs,

“Technical Studies in the Field of the Fine Arts” Quarterly, 10 volumes ( ), 40 issues Earliest publication of its type Global forum Several important editors and authors

Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies today

Henry Lie

IRR archive Both raw and assembled files are archived, only in digital format Organized per painting, sometimes per project Assemblies as TIFF and sometimes Photoshop file. Original files as TIFF (pre ca. 2000) or bitmap Will be integrated in our overall Conservation Database, presently looking for new product Original file size (depending on the capture boards used), no compression Collaboration sought with RKD, The Hague Not publicly accessible

Alan Burroughs X-ray Archive Art historical approach, many findings still hold up today Portable tube, great innovator Worked in Europe and USA, before WW II Archive of X-radiographs Special attention for Netherlandish and Dutch art GroepAantal opnames Van der Weyden28 Memling25 Massys19 Van Eyck18 Bouts18 Geertgen16 Campin13 David12 Bosch10 Van der Goes9 Bruegel8 Christus8 Van Cleve8

Alan Burroughs X-ray Archive Will be digitized, complex undertaking Content? At present data base is being built Different source materials: X-ray film; photographic film; glass negatives; glossies Image quality and resolution: 2000 dpi, 16 bits (X-ray film thick emulsions; lead soap protrusions) Will be made available either on-line or in study stations; copyright issues? Collaboration with the ICN and RKD on metadatabase

Layering Superimposition of related images Allows for precise comparison of technical documents with visible light, but also of different states of the same work Other software available (VIPS), but we prefer Photoshop (since version 3)

Archiving issues Different file formats: TIFF (standard), but also Bitmap (large numbers if IRRs), Photoshop (layered images), Director (interactive kiosks), web sites Different file sizes: working routinely with files from circa 500 KB to 500 MB Mondrian project (10 GB) on CD, DVD, also at RKD

Archiving issues Diptych project (probably 100 GB when finished): local hard drives (500 GB), CD, DVD Future solutions: Local Iomega RevDrive with Firewire Harvard Digital Repository Collaboration can be difficult

Imaging demo X-radiography scans (Photoshop) High resolution IR photographs (Photoshop) Layered images (Photoshop) Interactive kiosk (Director)