New Technology Leads to Exciting Discoveries in The Madison Art Collection

This past month  Madison Art Collection Director and Art History faculty member, Dr. Kate Stevens, with her student researchers have been hard at work in the Madison Art Collection solving mysteries of conservation and dating around some of the MAC's most important art works. In the case of an elegant statue of the goddess Juno from the Roman empire, this faculty-student team has used the University's new handheld X-ray fluorescence spectrometer, acquired in late May, to prove that that the goddess' reattached head is original to the ancient work--as both the head and body have the same trace elements--while the raised right arm is a modern repair. The University's new advanced technology has also put fears to rest that a dangerous uranium glaze was not used to coat one of the MAC's ceramic pieces, as was originally stated by the donor who gifted the work to the collection. Thus the ceramic can be handled and stored safely by Kate and her team without fear of radiation exposure. This Fall with the help of MAC interns the Collection's Mesoamerican objects will be tested against soil samples from original excavation sites to correlate points of origin for the works.