The Dogra Art Foundation is proud to welcome Dr. Celia S. Chari as the Mapping Color in History–Dogra Art Foundation Conservation Science Fellow.
In this role, Dr. Chari will support Mapping Color in History’s ongoing art historical and scientific research on South Asian painting practices and artists’ materials. She will travel to museums in Washington, DC and New York City to analyze artworks for Harvard University’s Mapping Color in History (MCH) database, expanding the project’s scope and collaborations with imaging scientists.
Dr. Chari previously served as the Beal Family Postdoctoral Fellow in conservation science at the Harvard Art Museums. She holds a Ph.D. in Materials Science from Caltech and has collaborated widely, including with the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, ENS Paris-Saclay, MIT, and Synchrotron SOLEIL.
Her past and ongoing work with MCH includes:
- Analyzing traditional plant- and mineral-based South Asian pigments
- Studying light-induced alteration mechanisms of Indian arsenic sulfide pigments
- Developing non-invasive reflectance FTIR tools for 16th–18th century Indian manuscripts
- Reuniting the Dispersed Bhagavata Purana (1520–1540) through materials analysis
Learn more about her work at celiachari.com.
This fellowship reflects the Dogra Art Foundation’s commitment to advancing innovative conservation research and deepening global understanding of South Asia’s artistic traditions.