City Palace Museum and Metropolitan Museum of Art Collaborative Research Project

Ms. Marina Ruiz-Molina at her talk sessionThe City Palace Museum, Udaipur and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York have embarked on a collaborative research project on their collection of Mewar paintings. Under this project, Ms. Marina Ruiz- Molina, paper conservator from The Met spent two weeks (October 2024) at the City Palace Museum (CPM) conservation laboratory with the in-house MMCF conservators, Ms. Anuja Mukherjee and Ms. Bhasha Shah supervised by MMCF conservation consultant, Mr. S. Girikumar. She guided the conservators in setting up of a Multi-spectral imaging studio within the laboratory. The Met has donated their newly developed McLED lights to the CPM laboratory which allow for greater efficiency and convenience in multi-spectral imaging. Ms. Marina and the in-house conservators used this studio set-up to image selected Mewar paintings from the collection under visible, ultra-violet and infra-red spectrums followed by their calibration and processing with Adobe softwares in order to obtain comparable results with The Met for further research. Ms. Marina also brought the Bruker XRF portable equipment with her which helped in analyzing elements and recognizing possible pigments used in Mewar Paintings. The research project also involved two days of discussions with practicing artists Mr. Rajaram Soni, Mr. Rajat Soni

Ms. Marina Ruiz-Molina with
Mr. Lakshyaraj Singh Mewar

and Mr. Manish Soni to understand the materials and techniques traditionally used to prepare Mewar paintings.

Maharana of Mewar Charitable Foundation also hosted a talk by Ms. Marina on technical photography of Mewar paintings. Ms. Marina also held meeting with Mr. Lakshyaraj Singh Mewar, Trustee MMCF.

Ms. Marina Ruiz-Molina along with participants at the talk session

Ms. Marina Ruiz-Molina at Conservation Lab

Ms. Marina Ruiz-Molina with team MMCF