THURSDAY, AUGUST 28, 2014 at 1:00 PM
Yale West Campus Conference Center
800 West Campus Drive, 2nd Floor, Conference room 218
Ancient Polychrome Artwork and Protective Materials in China
Ancient Chinese polychrome artifacts are some of the most valuable culture heritage in the world. Polychromy can be observed across a wide variety of works of art, including decorated architectural surfaces (e.g. Imperial Palace), grotto murals (e.g. Dunhuang or Kizil wall paintings), tomb paintings (e.g. Qianling Tomb), and painted pottery (e.g. Terra-cotta Warriors and Horses).
This presentation will cover three subjects: 1) Identification of the binding media and pigments of ancient Chinese polychrome artworks by modern analytical methods; 2) Recognition of polychrome structures and techniques by complementary application of several analytical techniques; 3) Design and fabrication of protective materials for conservation of polychrome artworks.
Dr. He Ling is a professor and Director at the Department of Chemistry, as well as the Director of the Institute of Conservation for Cultural Heritage, at Xi’an Jiaotong University in Xi’an, Shaanxi, China. She earned her Ph.D. in Chemistry at Northwestern Polytechnical University Xi’an, China, in 2003, and her MSc in Analytical Chemistry at the University of Science and Technology of China in 1988. Her main research fields are the chemical characterization and conservation of ancient polychromy including binding medium analysis, the design of well-defined fluoro-silicone-containing copolymers and their self-assembly behavior in film-formation, as well as and functional and high performance coating materials.
Hosted by: Stefan Simon, Director of the Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage