About the Contributors

Jane Bassett (Head of Decorative Arts and Sculpture Conservation, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles) completed her graduate studies in conservation at New York State College at Buffalo. A conservator at the Getty Museum since 1991, she has co-curated many exhibitions focused on sculptural processes, including La Roldana’s St. Ginés: The Making of a Polychrome Sculpture, Bernini and Marble, and Foundry to Finish on the direct lost-wax casting process. She authored The Artist Revealed: Adriaen de Vries, Sculptor in Bronze (2008) and coedited French Bronze Sculpture: Materials and Techniques 16th–18th Century (2014).

Francesca G. Bewer (Research Curator for Conservation and Technical Studies Programs and Director, Summer Institute for Technical Studies in Art, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts) undertook her graduate theses at the Warburg Institute, University of London (MPhil 1986) and the Institute of Archaeology, University College London (PhD 1996), focusing on Renaissance bronze technology. She has published widely on art technology and conservation history. She authored A Laboratory for Art: Harvard’s Fogg Museum and the Emergence of Conservation in America (ca. 1900–1950) (2010) and coedited French Bronze Sculpture: Materials and Techniques 16th–18th Century (2014) and The Explicit Material: Inquiries on the Intersection of Curatorial and Conservation Cultures (2019).

David Bourgarit (Archaeometallurgist, Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France [C2RMF], Paris, and Laboratory TEMPS-CNRS-Nanterre University) has a background in physics, with a PhD on the physical metallurgy of a specific titanium alloy. Since 1996 he has been a researcher at the C2RMF, where he has been investigating metallic artifacts from almost all periods and regions. His primary research interests are in the technological approach to copper metallurgy, with a focus on the provenance of copper and fabrication techniques. He coedited French Bronze Sculpture: Materials and Techniques 16th–18th Century (2014).

Arlen Heginbotham (Conservator of Decorative Arts and Sculpture, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles) received his AB in East Asian studies from Stanford University, his MA in art conservation from Buffalo State College, and his PhD in earth sciences from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. His research interests include the use of X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy as a tool for studying copper alloy artifacts, microscopic and chemical wood identification, X-radiographic dendrochronology, and the technical study of Asian export lacquer. He coauthored, with Gillian Wilson, the collection catalogue French Rococo Ébénisterie in the J. Paul Getty Museum (2021).

Andrew Lacey (Artist, Founder, and Independent Scholar) studied archaeometallurgy at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London (MSc 1998), focusing on interview techniques for gaining insight into the working practices of London fine art foundries. His work as a contemporary artist is highly experimental; casting all his own work in bronze enables creative interception in all stages of the process, further developing visual and material symbologies that are embodied within the sculpture. His work as an independent scholar is a creative collaboration among conservators, historians, makers, and curators, and explores possibilities of hypothetical facture via processes of experimental reconstruction.

Peta Motture (formerly Senior Curator, Sculpture, Victoria and Albert Museum, London) joined the V&A in 1985 and retired in 2022. Since 1990 she has specialized primarily in Renaissance sculpture, with a focus on Italy. She has published widely on medieval and later sculpture, notably bronzes, often collaborating with colleagues in the technical study of sculpture. Her books include the V&A Catalogue of Italian Bells and Mortars (2001), Large Bronzes in the Renaissance (ed., 2003), and The Culture of Bronze: Making and Meaning in Italian Renaissance Sculpture (2019).

Ann Boulton (Associate Conservator, Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma) has been a practicing objects conservator for thirty-five years. She received her MA in art conservation from Buffalo State College in 1985. While objects conservator at the Baltimore Museum of Art, she researched nineteenth- and twentieth-century French art bronze technology in her study of the sculpture of Antoine-Louis Barye and Henri Matisse. In 2009 she shifted her research focus to American bronze sculpture at the Gilcrease and curated the exhibition Frontier to Foundry (2014). She contributed the essay “A Tale of Two Foundries” to Sharon Hecker’s Finding Lost Wax: The Disappearance and Recovery of an Ancient Casting Technique and the Experiments of Medardo Rosso (2021).

Clotilde Boust (Research Engineer, Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France [C2RMF], Paris, and PSL University UMR 8247 PCMTH CNRS) has a background in physics and photography with a PhD on optronics. Since 2013 she has been heading the C2RMF imaging group in producing images for art conservation (UV/VIS/IR imaging, X-rays, and surface 3D). She is responsible for online publications on scientific imaging for Cultural Heritage (copa.hypotheses.org), contributes to conferences as color or electronic imaging, and has published in books centered on the Villa of Diomede (2020), Genoese School drawings at the Louvre (2017), and the Bayeux Tapestry (2016).

Manon Castelle is a conservation scientist specializing in copper alloys in ancient and historical metallurgy. She received a PhD from the Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines in 2016 for her work on French bronze statuary techniques, 1540 to 1660. She then worked on bronze artifacts excavated from the Celtic prince of Lavau tomb (fifth century BCE, France) and, as part of a postdoctoral project (UVSQ), on copper-based seal matrices from the French Archives Nationales and the Musée des beaux-arts de Lyon. In 2018 she obtained the two-year Migelien Gerritzen Fellowship at the Rijksmuseum and continued her research on European bronze objects from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries.

Yi Chen received her PhD in Chinese archaeology from the University of Oxford. She is a former curator of early Chinese collections and now a visiting researcher at the British Museum. In addition, she is an academic advisor of the Dresden Porcelain Project of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden and a J. S. Lee Memorial Fellow (2022/2023), hosted by The Art Museum, Chinese University of Hong Kong. Before she joined the British Museum in 2015, she was the Christensen Fellow in Chinese Painting at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology in Oxford.

Annabelle Collinet (Curator, Medieval Iranian World Collections, Musée du Louvre, and Associate Researcher of the CéSor – Centre d’études en sciences sociales du religieux, EHESS/CNRS) completed her PhD at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and is a specialist in the arts of fire of the Iranian and Indian worlds (Islamic period). She is the coauthor of Nishapur Revisited (2013) and coeditor of Bodies and Artefacts: Relics and Other Devotional Supports in Shia Societies in the Indic and Iranian Worlds (2020), and just completed Précieuses matières. Les arts du metal dans le monde iranien mediéval, vol. 1, X^e–XIII^e siècles (2021).

Pete Dandridge (Conservator Emeritus, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) came to the Metropolitan Museum in 1979 from the Cooperstown Graduate Program. He was principal conservator of the ivories, enamels, and metalwork in the Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters with a focus on the technical history of those materials and the capabilities of the associated artists. He contributed to Small Wonders: Late-Gothic Boxwood Micro-Carvings from the Low Countries (2016) and was an author and coeditor for both Medieval Copper, Bronze and Brass (2013) and the exhibition Lions, Dragons, and Other Beasts: Aquamanilia of the Middle Ages, Vessels for Church and Table (2006); he also co-curated the latter.

Susanne Gänsicke (Head of Antiquities Conservation, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles) holds a degree in archaeological conservation from Römisch Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Mainz (1987). She was objects conservator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, from 1990 to 2016, where she remains a project member of Auloi from Meroë, funded by the European Research Council. In 2016 she received an individual grant for fieldwork in Nepal from the Asian Cultural Council of New York. Her research interests include materials and manufacturing techniques of ancient and historic metalwork, and the intersection of traditional craftsmanship and conservation. She coauthored, with Yvonne Markowitz, Looking at Jewelry (2019).

Joachim Kreutner (Metals Conservator, Bavarian Nationalmuseum, Munich) received his degree in conservation, restoration, and art technology at the Technische Universität, Munich. Since 2016 he has been supervisor to the metals conservation team at the Bavarian Nationalmuseum. His research interests are focused on preventative conservational conditions of museum silver collections and the technique of bronze casting. He is deputy spokesperson for the conservation working group at Deutscher Museumsbund.

Susan La Niece (Archaeometallurgist, British Museum Department of Scientific Research, 1977–2017) graduated in archaeology and ancient history, Manchester University, with further studies in archaeological science and metallurgy. She is a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. Her research interest is the history of metal technology and workshop techniques. She has published on metalwork of many periods and cultures, including medieval Europe and the Islamic world, bronze casting, gold, niello, gilding, silvering, and decorative patination. She was coeditor of Metal Plating and Patination (1993) and Metals and Mines (2007) and the author of Gold (2009). She is the editor of the journal Jewellery Studies.

Elsa Lambert (Radiologist of Cultural Heritage, Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France [C2RMF], Paris) joined the C2RMF in 2001. For eleven years she worked as a scientific photographer for the study of paintings. Her work as a photographer has been published in Inside Mona Lisa (2004) and Grünewald (2012), among others; the latter received the art book prize in 2013. In 2012 she took over objects radiography and tomography activities of the C2RMF, thus bringing her knowledge to the service of studies, restoration, and expertise of works of art and archaeological artifacts.

Elisabeth Lebon holds a doctorate in art history from Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne. She is an independent researcher in nineteenth- and twentieth-century French sculpture and the author of the catalogues raisonnés of Antoine Pevsner (in collaboration with Pierre Brullé), Charles Despiau, and Jean Joire. She specializes in the history of art foundries and casting processes in France, and is the author of Dictionnaire des fondeurs de bronze d’art. France 1890–1950 (2003), Le Fondeur et le sculpteur: Technique du bronze et histoire de l’art (2012), and Fonte au sable – fonte à cire perdue: histoire d’une rivalité (2012). She has been brought to work on a wide range of artists through this specialty.

Stéphanie Leroy (Archaeometallurgist, Senior Researcher at CNRS, Laboratoire Archéomatériaux et Prévision de l’Altération-LAPA/ Institut de Recherche sur les ArchéoMATériaux-IRAMAT) has a PhD in archaeometry, focusing on the physico-chemical characteristics of iron for the provenance investigation of ancient ferrous artifacts. As a researcher at LAPA since 2013, she develops transdisciplinary methods, such as on the origin identification and dating of iron to generate knowledge on the manufacturing processes, and on production and distribution networks of ancient ferrous metals. Since 2014, she has expanded her regional and disciplinary range with comparative work in Southeast Asia.

Linda Ying-Chun Lin (Objects Conservator, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco) received her MA in conservation of cultural heritage materials from UCLA / Getty Interdepartmental Program in 2010. She was formerly the conservator for arts of Asia at the Newark Museum, New Jersey. She has translated articles in the areas of archaeology, conservation, and technical research published in both Chinese and English journals. Her most recent translation projects include ancient Chinese bronze-casting technology and Chinese lacquer, in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Asian Art.

Jeffrey Maish (formerly Conservator of Antiquities, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles) received his MA in conservation from Buffalo State College in 1987, joined the Getty Museum in 1988, and retired from there in 2021. He has published a range of technical studies on ancient bronzes from the Getty collections and on loan. He was a resident of the American Academy Rome in 2012, focusing on bronze technology and radiography, and continues his research on ancient bronze production and the interpretation of casting features. Additional research interests include the techniques of Attic pottery and relief line production.

Mathilde Mechling received her PhD in languages, civilizations, and Asian societies in 2020 from University Sorbonne Nouvelle and Leiden University. Her thesis focused on Hindu and Buddhist bronze statuary from the Indonesian archipelago, developing an interdisciplinary methodology combining stylistic and iconographic analysis, archaeometallurgy, archaeology, and religious aspects. She published “The Indonesian Bronze-Casting Tradition: Technical Investigations on Thirty-Nine Indonesian Bronze Statues (7th–11th c.) from the Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet, Paris” (2018) with David Bourgarit (C2RMF), Brice Vincent (EFEO), and Pierre Baptiste (Musée Guimet). She is adapting her PhD thesis into a book publication.

Benoît Mille (Archaeometallurgist, Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France [C2RMF], Paris, and Laboratory TEMPS-CNRS-Nanterre University) received his PhD in 2017 on the earliest history of lost-wax casting from the Universities of Nanterre and Fribourg. Since 1993 he has been a researcher at the C2RMF, mostly investigating the beginnings of metallurgy (south of France, Pakistan, Chile) and the evolution of large bronze casting techniques (Egypt, South Arabia, Greece, Rome). He coedited “Bronzes grecs et romains, recherches récentes” – Hommage à Claude Rolley (2012), Bronzes grecs et romains: études récentes sur la statuaire antique (2017), Launac et le launacien (2017), and Nouveaux regards sur le trésor des bronzes de Bavay (2019).

Lorenzo Morigi (Independent Restorer) joined the company owned by his father in 1990, specializing in the restoration of outdoor bronze sculptures and metal objects. He studied chemistry for conservators at ICCROM in Rome. He has been responsible for planning, direct restoration, and technological study of many Italian bronze sculptures from ancient Rome to the modern era, and specializes in the conservation of contemporary sculptures, also with thorough experience in consolidation and restoration of waterlogged wood. He has reproduced medieval bronze doors and sculptures in art foundries. He collaborates with art handling companies in conceiving, designing, and building special art crating with reverse engineering. He works with 3D scanners and digital fabrication.

Ruven Pillay (Research Scientist, Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France [C2RMF], Paris) holds an MPhys in physics from the University of Manchester, an MSc in computer science from the University of Edinburgh, and a PhD in hyperspectral imaging from NTNU, Norway. His research interests include the application of advanced imaging, data processing and visualization, and other techniques to the study of art. In addition to his work at the C2RMF he has more than twenty-five years of experience working in major art galleries, and has also worked at the National Gallery in London, the National Museum in Stockholm, and as an invited scholar at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

Chandra L. Reedy (Professor, University of Delaware) received a PhD in archaeology from UCLA in 1986, specializing in archaeological science and material culture of Asia. She has special interest in the copper alloy casting technologies of northwest India and of Tibetan regions, and published Himalayan Bronzes: Technology, Style, and Choices in 1997. She has also participated in projects studying bronzes of Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, and Renaissance Europe. She has done extensive research on thin-section petrography of clay core materials from bronzes, incorporating image analysis methods, and published Thin-Section Petrography of Stone and Ceramic Cultural Materials in 2008.

David J. Reid (Founder and Enquirer, Semi-Retired) studied chemistry, physics, mathematics, and astronomy at the Universities of Auckland and Canterbury, and has owned and operated a number of bronze foundries around the world. He received the Queen Elizabeth II Research Grant (1979) to travel the world to study art casting techniques, and he holds a UK patent (1990) for an innovative method of metal casting. He was a research fellow at Central Saint Martin’s College of Art (1992–96) and has developed a method for melting and casting silver or bronze using a domestic microwave oven. He continues to teach his accessible foundry techniques in many countries.

Dominique Robcis (Head Conservator, Metal Team of the Research Department of the Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France [C2RMF], Paris) received his MA in medieval history and metal conservation before joining the C2RMF. He specializes in metal techniques and conservation, and his technological studies focus on jewelry and surface treatments such as gilding, patina, and tool marks, mainly in European antiquity but also for Japanese productions. He has worked on collection objects from a number of French museums, including the Louvre and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris. He is in charge of digital microscopy equipment and a p-XRF.

Donna Strahan (Head of the Department of Conservation and Scientific Research, Freer and Sackler Galleries of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC) holds a BA in Chinese language and an MA in conservation of ethnographic and archaeological objects from George Washington University. From 2006 to 2014 she was the conservator of Asian objects at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Her major interests are the technology and preservation of ancient metals and Asian lacquer. She has lectured and published widely, including Wisdom Embodied: Chinese Buddhist and Daoist Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, coauthored with Denise Patry Leidy (2010).

Shelley Sturman (formerly Head of Object Conservation, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC) received her BA and MA from Brandeis University and her MS in conservation from the University of Delaware. She has a special interest is interdisciplinary investigation of Renaissance bronze casting with curatorial colleagues. She is honored to have performed technical examinations and published on Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise, Andrea Riccio’s Paschal Candlestick, Jacopo Sansovino’s Sacristy Door, Giambologna’s female nudes and Mercury, bronzes by Antico and Niccolò Roccatagliata, the Budapest Horse, and masterpieces in the Claudia Quentin and Robert H. Smith collections. Other research and publication interests include original Edgar Degas waxes and contemporary sculpture.

Jeremy Warren (Honorary Curator of Sculpture, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and Sculpture Research Curator, the National Trust) is a specialist in Renaissance and later European sculpture. His numerous publications include the catalogues Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum (2014) and Italian Sculpture in the Wallace Collection (2016), as well as articles on the sculptors Antico, Giovanni Bandini, Giambologna, Vincenzo and Gian Gerolamo Grandi, Leone Leoni, and Severo da Ravenna. Exhibitions include Beauty and Power: Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Peter Marino Collection (2010). He has also written extensively on the history of collecting.

Jean-Marie Welter (Independent Scholar, Luxembourg) held an engineering diploma from École Polytechnique, Paris (1966), and graduated as a Dr. rer. nat. from the Technische Hochschule, Munich (1969). He started his professional career in academia, producing and studying metallic materials. In 1985 he joined the copper industry and became corporate director of research and development of a major European group (KME) fabricating semi-products of copper and copper alloys. At that time, he started investigating historical copper artifacts, which he continued to do within the context of the history of the copper industry, its products, and their applications including exploring its historic use in sculpture until his death in 2022.

Antoine Zink (Archaeometer, Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France [C2RMF], Paris) specializes in luminescence dating. After a PhD in physics applied to archaeology with Professor R. Visocekas and a two-year AvH fellowship at the TU Bergakademie Freiberg, he founded the first luminescence dating laboratory in the Iberian Peninsula, Instituto tecnologico e nuclear in Sacavem, Portugal. Since 2002 he has been in charge of luminescence dating at the C2RMF, and his research centers on the dating of collection objects and Bayesian analysis.