QUICK TAKES - Jan. 13, 2009

Scientist Dusan Stulik, researcher Art Kaplan and photographic conservator Tram Vo have developed a new way to authenticate historic photographs.

Instead of relying on human eyes and microscopes to date photographic images, as in the past, the specialists at the Getty Conservation Institute devised a scientific method that can determine the age of many photographs made in the 20th century. The key, they discovered, was to identify hidden chemical “signatures” associated with particular processes.

The discovery is likely to be a boon to many collectors, curators, conservators and historians, but the first practical application took place in Paris. Working with several French organizations, including the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation, Stulik and Kaplan recently performed a chemical analysis on Cartier-Bresson’s original photographs. It’s the first step in building an archival database of the artist’s work, to be used as a basis of comparison for dating other vintage prints by Cartier-Bresson -- and for exposing forgeries.

-- Suzanne Muchnic