Our Projects

ISAAC’s projects takes the research team to museums, galleries and heritage sites across the World. We have visited a number of national and international organisations in collaboration with the Group, for the analyses of several different artwork types and styles.

• From European projects at London’s V&A museum, the Louvre in Paris and Fondation Beyeler near Basal, Switzerland to North American work at New York’s Brooklyn Museum and Getty Conservation Institution (GCI) based in Los Angeles.
• In China, our research has taken us to Shaan Xi History Musuem, in Xi'an, the Dunhuang Research Academy in Gansu and the National Museum of China, Beijing.

Paintings

Culture and Trade through the Prism of Technical Art History - a Study of Chinese Export Painting

Conservation varnishes at the National Gallery: studying their optical and material properties

Non-invasive analysis and large scale imaging of murals at the UNESCO world heritage site of Mogao caves in Dunhuang

The application of optical coherence tomography in a study of The Mellow Pad by Stuart Davis, the American Modernist Painter

Ultra-high resolution Optical Coherence Tomography (UHOCT) for the conservation of the Leonardo da Vinci painting Saint John the Baptist at the Louvre

Manuscripts

ISAAC Mobile Lab Examination of the Faddan More Bog Bible

The origin of the Selden map of China through a holistic analysis of the painting materials and the cartographic techniques

The Oppenheimer Siddur: uncovering the production process of a medieval illuminated Hebrew manuscript using scientific analysis

From Myth to Majesty: An Historical and Scientific Exploration of Fifteenth-Century British Royal Genealogies from the ‘Noah’ Tradition

Vitreous Objects

Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) for the conservation and interpretation of vitreous materials in museum collections

Rock Art Monuments

Non-invasive methods for in situ assessing and monitoring the vulnerability of rock art monuments

Networks & Exhibitions

Seeing the Light - The Science of Colour in Art

UK-China workshop on Application of Imaging Science to the Interdisciplinary Study of Wall Paintings along the Silk Road

Science and Heritage Programme Research Cluster on Understanding complex structures: the conservation, display and interpretation of lace and natural objects

Instrument Development

Testing the light sensitivity of artworks with a portable microfade spectrometer

Remote laser spectroscopy at standoff distances for heritage applications

Remote spectral imaging at the UNESCO World Heritage Site at Dunhuang

The Next Generation of Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) for Art Conservation - in situ non-invasive imaging of subsurface microstructure of objects