MNAC - Museum explores

Today’s museums rely more and more on the knowledge provided by the scientific examination of the works in their care, by means of increasingly diverse, sensitive and sophisticated resources and techniques. The incidence of rays of raking light on the surface of a piece, the reflection of ultraviolet light, the penetration of infrared or X-ray radiation in the different layers of an artefact or the physical-chemical analysis of the materials that constitute it provide data that can help confirm or refute working hypotheses. It is not always easy to trace the evolution of a piece from the moment the artist started work on the project through the subsequent history of the object in its own right: vicissitudes, additions, innovative overlays, degradation, copy, fake. Research can only advance by means of meticulous and systematic interdisciplinary work, to improve our integral understanding, conservation and interpretation of the heritage that the museum preserves and makes available, in a process that is always open and perfectible.