Follow the journey from private holdings to public museum of the John Bourne collection of 300 ceramic, metal and stone artifacts from the ancient Americas. Bringing artifacts into the public domain puts them in a new context with which comes additional exposure and scrutiny. Museums use a multi-faceted approach to tackle issues of authenticity, over-restoration and identification of newly acquired materials. In this talk Julie Lauffenburger, Senior Objects Conservator will highlight discoveries and insights made during her studies with other scholars on the issue of authenticity.

About the speaker
Julie Lauffenburger is a Senior Objects Conservator with over twenty years of museum experience. She has coordinated the research and treatment of the Bourne collection since its arrival in 2009 and authored an essay on the approaches to authentication published in the accompanying exhibition catalogue. Julie earned her MA and certificate in art conservation in 1989 from the State University College at Buffalo and participated in a post-graduate internship at the Smithsonian Institution’s Materials Conservation Institute where she worked on excavation at the Indus river civilization of Harappa. Julie has also lectured and published on such diverse topics as Thai sculptural techniques, the use and identification of baleen in museum collections, Byzantine ceramic tiles from Constantinople and technical studies of Barye bronzes.

This talk is part of a day forum focused on the special exhibition Exploring Art of the Ancient America: The John Bourne Collection Gift.