Publisher: Atelier Editions, ISBN: 9780997593549, Author: Narayna Khandekar, Format: Softcover 234 x 178 mm, 224pp  

The Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies at the Harvard Art Museums encompasses over 2,500 of the world's rarest pigments. Started in 1928, the collection has grown into a huge apothecary of bottles and beakers, as more and more pigments are donated to the impressive selection.

Visually excavating the museums' extraordinary collection, this publication examines the contained pigments and artefacts – their provenance, composition, symbology and application.

Museum director Edward Forbes started the collection at the turn of the 20th century, in order to preserve the early Italian paintings he had begun to collect. Today the collection continues to grow, and regularly helps experts across the world to research and authenticate paintings.

This publication also explores the larger related fields of chromatics, the historical narratives of art and chemistry, and the innovations with which we have sough to better illustrate our aesthetic and expressive compulsions.The book includes a foreword by renowned British colour author Victoria Finlay.