Sunday at the Met celebrated the fascinating relationship between art and science through a range of programming throughout the day. These specially programmed events included gallery talks devoted to viewing the collection through the lens of science, educational programs, museum audio-guides about science and art, and lectures that brought museum conservators out of their laboratories and onto the stage to illuminate the science behind art restoration and conservation. The free-with-admission Sunday afternoon lecture program covered a spectrum of art, from classical sculpture to paintings by Jackson Pollock, and was introduced by Marco Leona, the David H. Koch Scientist in Charge, Department of Scientific Research at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Mark Abbe, research scholar at the Metropolitan Museum, examines by fiber optics reflectance spectroscopy a funerary stele. [Funerary stele with a woman in childbirth, Early Hellenistic, late 4th–early 3rd century B.C. Greek; from the Soldiers’ Tomb, Ibrahimieh necropolis, Alexandria, excavated 1884; limestone, paint; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Darius Ogden Mills, 1904 (04.17.1)] Photograph by Marco Leona.
