L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, MAY 2, 2024 www.italoamericano.org 26 L'Italo-Americano W o u l d t h e presence of lead in a b r o n z e s t a t u e give us clues about the his- torical era in which the stat- ue was crafted? The answer to this question goes beyond a s i m p l e " y e s . " I n d e e d , understanding the composi- tion of the materials used in art not only sheds light on the techniques employed but also, when placed within a b r o a d e r c u l t u r a l c o n t e x t , o f f e r s i n s i g h t s i n t o t r a d e dynamics among different civilizations spanning cen- turies and millennia. This type of interdiscipli- nary research, which brings t o g e t h e r a r c h a e o l o g i c a l i n s i g h t s w i t h t e c h n i c a l expertise, is the domain of archaeological scientists like Monica Ganio, who works at the Getty Conser- vation Institute. "My focus is the comprehensive study o f t h e m a t e r i a l s ' o r i g i n s , potential alterations to the object, and any prior restora- tion efforts, to give conserva- tors and curators a deeper understanding of an arti- fact's journey through histo- ry," Monica tells me during my visit to her workshop, located within the Getty Villa in Malibu. "For instance, glassware was often manu- factured in specific areas, such as the Syro-Palestinian region, before being distrib- u t e d a c r o s s t h e R o m a n E m p i r e , w h e r e i t w o u l d undergo reshaping and col- oring to suit varied prefer- ences. This offers valuable i n s i g h t s i n t o t h e s c a l e o f commerce during Roman times." After completing her stud- ies in Cultural Heritage Sci- ence and Technology at the U n i v e r s i t y o f T u r i n a n d undertaking an internship at the Reggia di Venaria, Moni- ca Ganio undertook a jour- ney of exploration through the Master of Talents pro- gram. This led her to a year- long stint at the Getty Con- servation Institute, which culminated in a doctoral pur- suit at the Catholic Universi- ty Leuven in Belgium. She returned to the United States in 2014, as a post-doctoral fellow in Chicago under the NU-Access project, a collabo- ration between Northwest- ern University and the Art Institute of Chicago, before p e r m a n e n t l y j o i n i n g t h e Getty Conservation Institute in 2015. I n a d d i t i o n t o t h e archaeological knowl- edge side, there is a sci- entific side to your job. W h a t k i n d o f t o o l s d o you use for your studies a n d w h e n w e r e t h e y introduced in the field? I use several, among them i s t h e X - r a y f l u o r e s c e n c e spectrometer, called XRF for short, which is an X-ray tool used for routine, relatively non-destructive chemical analysis of rocks, minerals, sediments, and other inor- ganic materials. The interest- ing thing about it is that it allows non-invasive, non- destructive analysis to be car- ried out. This means we don't need to take a sample of the object, something we try to limit as much as possible here at the museum. In what research did you use it? The Getty commissioned a catalog of all their glass pro- duction. In that specific case, we selected 24 glass jars. I am talking about the ones you usually find in museum collections: they generally have very bright colors, with a blue background and zigzag decorations, usually yellow, t u r q u o i s e , o r w h i t e . T h e s e l e c t e d o b j e c t s w e r e a l l crafted between the 6th and the 1st centuries BC, and they are all very similar to each other. Their shape, their size, how they were forged, the way their necks were made are all features that can help us give a preliminary dating. My job was to figure out what colorants were used in their p r o d u c t i o n a n d w h e t h e r there was variation associat- ed with both the chronology and the shape of the object itself. Using XRF was great because I didn't need to take samples from any specimen, but I was able to get enough information to understand what colorants were used. What conclusion did you come to in this case? For instance, I discovered that, initially, the only sub- stance used to produce white was antimony, and that lead came only at a later stage. There was a change in the formula over a six-hundred- year period and that's inter- esting and very significant. Did you work on stat- ues or other larger arti- facts? Y e s ! F o r i n s t a n c e , I w o r k e d o n t h e D r u n k e n Satyr, which was here some t i m e a g o f o r r e s t o r a t i o n , b e f o r e g o i n g b a c k t o t h e N a t i o n a l A r c h a e o l o g i c a l Museum in Naples. In that case, we knew from a histori- ographical point of view that there had been some work d o n e o n t h e S a t y r i n t h e Bourbon period, and the ver- s i o n t h a t w e s e e a t t h e moment includes original Roman parts, parts added in the Bourbon period, and then e l e m e n t s o f a s e r i e s o f restorations carried out in the last two centuries. For Erik Risser, the conservator who was following the pro- j e c t , i t w a s n e c e s s a r y t o understand which were the o r i g i n a l p a r t s a n d w h i c h w e r e t h e B o u r b o n p a r t s . Here, again, the XRF was c r u c i a l : t h e v a r i a t i o n observed in the composition of the bronze alloy made it possible to distinguish the R o m a n p a r t s f r o m t h o s e added in the Bourbon period. Funny thing: while working on the Satyr, we found frag- ments of an Italian newspa- per from the 1960s in the gap between the statue and its stone pedestal. Besides alloys, what other materials can give u s i n f o r m a t i o n o n a n artifact? Pigments. The mummy of Herakleides in the Getty col- lection is wrapped in red- orange gauze, which contains a red lead pigment, so we k n e w i t w a s a l e a d - b a s e d color. Through lead isotope a n a l y s i s , w e w e r e a b l e t o trace its provenance, which is i n c r e d i b l y i n t e r e s t i n g because it comes from the Rio Tinto in Spain, so we understood that a material from that specific area was used in the mummification process. What project are you particularly proud of? I'm a big believer in inter- disciplinary work... We had a collection of fragments that arrived at the Getty in 1979. They were all ball-shaped, and kept in cotton. For years no one had any interest in studying them. In 1989 it was discovered that they were gold fragments, and in 2021, during the pandemic, one of t h e c o n s e r v a t o r s , S u s a n Lansing Maish, began work- ing with Mary Louise Hart, curator at the museum, to find a better way to catalog them. The previous CEO of the Getty, James Cuno, used to organize sharing lunches: t h e G e t t y s t a f f w o u l d b e divided into groups and each had to talk about his or her own project for five minutes. By pure chance, I happened to be in the group with Mary Hart, and since I was also scanning gold pieces at the t i m e , w e d e c i d e d t o j o i n forces. I worked on scanning those fragments and discov- ered that they were actually gold fabric in which the warp and weft had slightly differ- ent compositions, visible as striations of different thick- nesses and compositions. U s i n g t h i s i n f o r m a t i o n , Susan was able to re-join the various fragments, just like you do in a jigsaw puzzle. We found out those little ball fragments were, in fact, a gold hair ribbon that vestals in Roman times used as an ornament when participating in certain ceremonies. What materials can tell us about art: an interview with archaeological scientist Monica Ganio SILVIA NITTOLI Left: Monica Ganio in a detail shot from the Getty Science Up Close video (Photo Courtesy of Getty Conservation Institute); right: at work on an Etruscan panel (Photo courtesy of Monica Ganio) LOS ANGELES ITALIAN COMMUNITY

• Cover