[LECTURE] MELLON PRESERVATION SERIES: APPLICATION OF HANDHELD XRF IN CULTURAL HERITAGE CONSERVATION

Date: Monday, 28 August 2017

Time:  18:00 - 20:00   

Venue: Drake Gallery, 1/F Fung Ping Shan Building, University Museum and Art Gallery

Speaker: Dr Lee Drake, specialist in XRF Applications 

Language: English

Cost: Free admission. All are welcome. Please click here to register.

This lecture will provide participants with a general introduction to the field of handheld XRF analysis and is aimed at a general public interested in the field of conservation and material science.

Handheld XRF spectrometers serve a wide range of applications in art, conservation and archaeology. The technique allows for the non-destructive and in-situ elemental analysis of paintings, artefacts, sculptures and building finishes. The application of XRF is a highly specialised field that deals with materials that differ from the analysis of modern materials. What is measured with XRF is preliminarily the surface. Objects in art and archaeology may contain depositions or changes from chemical and physical deterioration of the surface, or they can be heterogeneous, in which case, available standards often are not applicable. All of these factors must be considered for the correct application and interpretation of the data.

About the speaker

Dr Lee Drake worked as a senior applications scientist for Bruker Nano, where he specialised in XRF for art conservation and cultural heritage. He has worked in museums around the world, from the Smithsonian Freer Gallery to the Natural History Museum of London to the Bibliotheque National de France on topics as varied as pigment identification, conservation, archaeometry, agriculture, and semiconducters. He is the author of numerous publications and is currently vice president of the Paleoresearch Institute.

Organised by:

Architectural Conservation Laboratory (ACLab)

Faculty of Architecture

HKUL Preservation & Conservation Division

University Museum and Art Gallery (UMAG)

Generously funded by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation