INMA Impulso: Tami Lasseter Clare
INMA Impulso Seminar: Pigment of your imagination: tales of artwork from a conservation science perspective – Dr. Tami Lasseter Clare
On Wednesday 24 January will be a new session of the INMA-Impulse lecture series, a series of conferences that seeks to bring the most cutting-edge research to society.
The next session titled: “Pigment of your imagination: tales of artwork from a conservation science perspective” will be given by Dr. Tami Lasseter Clare, Professor of Chemistry – Portland State University.
Summary of the talk:
Prussian blue, or Iron(II,III) hexacyanoferrate(II,III), is considered the first synthetic pigment, first made in the 18th century. Aside from artistic uses, it has also been used in medicine as a toxic-metal sequestering agent and in tissue staining. Dr. Clare will present two stories on Prussian blue: one from a Neapolitan painting and a second hydrogels containing Prussian blue. Figuring out from what artwork is made can tell us which materials were available at that time and place and how to prevent degradation. Using an 18th century Neapolitan painting by Guiseppe Bonito titled, Il femminiello, as a case study, Dr. Clare will show how she and her students used analytical techniques to identify the color palette, which aided in its restoration. Dr. Clare will discuss the symbolic imagery in the painting, which is a unique image of a transgender man (known in Italian as, “femminiello”). In the second story, Dr. Clare will discuss how the formation of Prussian blue, or its analogs, within hydrogels can be used to monitor the corrosion of metals. Metals corrosion is a significant economic problem and affects both the structural and aesthetic qualities of architectural and artistic metalwork
The conference will take place on Wednesday 24 January at 12 noon in the Conference Room of the R+D Building of the Río Ebro Campus of the University of Zaragoza.
