A selection from the Forbes Pigment Collection at the Harvard Art Museums. Photo: Caitlin Cunningham Photography.
The lively stories of these colors are shared through short audio recordings by two Harvard Art Museums staff members who work closely with the Forbes Pigment Collection: Narayan Khandekar, senior conservation scientist and director of the Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, and Alison Cariens, conservation coordinator in the Straus Center. Each “stop” on the guided digital tour shows an image of a pigment sample from the Forbes collection along with corresponding audio clips. To provide further visual context, many recordings are paired with images of objects from the museums’ collections that incorporate the pigment, including links to online object records for deeper investigation and prompts on where to view the work in the galleries. Full transcripts of each recording are also available alongside the audio prompts in the slides. Entries for other pigments in the collection will be added to the tour over time.
In the tour, Khandekar and Cariens discuss a wide variety of pigments, including Tyrian purple, which was extracted from small Murex shellfish by the ancient Greeks; cochineal, tiny bugs that produce a red pigment first used by the Aztec and Maya peoples and later highly prized in Europe; mauve, one of the first synthetic dyes, created in 1856 during a search for a cure for malaria; and Emerald Green, a favorite of Van Gogh (and highly toxic).
Tara Metal, the museums’ digital content manager, spearheaded the creation of the tour. Her objective was to expand representation of the pigment collection on the museums’ website.
“Like so many of our visitors, I’ve long been enchanted by the Forbes Pigment Collection and have enjoyed learning the stories behind the pigments from Narayan and Alison over the years,” said Metal. “My aim was to make those stories widely accessible but in a way that still felt intimate. I hope that our audiences come away from this guide with enthusiasm for the intersection of art, science, and history—and of course with a favorite pigment as well!”
“This introduction to the Forbes Pigment Collection only scratches the surface of our collection, but it opens up exciting conversations about color,” said Khandekar. “Color is everywhere around us. Our spaces are filled with items that have been designed and colored with deliberate choice, and the search for color has been happening for thousands of years. Alison and I are excited to share these histories and shed light on what the raw materials of works of art look like.”
“I’m thrilled to be able to share the stories of pigments with audiences around the world,” said Cariens. “I respond to questions about our pigment collection on a daily basis, and this new guide allows me to tell individual stories of pigments and the history of the Forbes Collection on a wider scale.”
