This book gives evidence of the proliferation of successful multidisciplinary collaborations among researchers in museums, universities and laboratories. These studies use the methods and techniques of materials research to understand degradation and design strategies and promote long-term preservation of material culture and cultural heritage, e.g., works of art, culturally significant artifacts, and archaeological sites and complexes and their environments. Preserving cultural heritage includes developing a critical understanding of how our predecessors used technology and craft to solve problems of survival and organization and make the symbols or representations of what was important to them. The book also discloses patterns of technology-transfer from one field to another and provides evaluation tools and skills so that preservation expectations may be based on performance criteria and life histories of the constituent materials. Topics include: technical art history; conservation science; archaeology science; reconstruction of past technologies; innovative methodology and instrumentation and interdisciplinary or cross-disciplinary contributions.

A focused investigation of Whistler's watercolors that introduces readers to a rarely seen aspect of the artist's creative output In the 1880s, James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) reinvented himself through the medium of watercolor. At the time, excellence in watercolor was most often associated with British artists, and most notably with the work of J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851). Whistler's embrace of watercolor allowed the expatriate artist to present himself as an heir to the great Turner, while at the same time creating easily portable works that could supply an American market and, the artist hoped, help secure his art-historical legacy in his home country. Indeed, it was the American Gilded Age industrialist Charles Lang Freer who would amass the largest collection of Whistler's watercolors, eventually bequeathing them to the Smithsonian in 1906. This publication is the first systematic study of Freer's amazing treasure trove of more than 50 watercolors by Whistler and includes figures, landscapes, nocturnes, and interiors. Providing both an art-historical context that looks into the contemporary reception of the works, as well as rigorous scientific analysis of Whistler's materials and techniques, this volume offers a groundbreaking look into an overlooked segment of the celebrated artist's oeuvre.