Hello Ana, and welcome!
I do not know of anyone anywhere near you who does this sort of consulting work, but I can share some comments on watercolors. Because of their semi-transparent nature, some of the signal you collect will be contributed by the underlying paper, so always start by running a blank spot of paper if at all possible, and look closely at how the spectrum changes with light exposure, comparing the initial and final spectra. It may bleach, it may darken and yellow if the lignin content or sizing are photo-reactive, and for newer papers there may be fluorescent whitening agents that are exhausted by light exposure. These behaviors may then be echoed to some extent in the painted areas, depending on how opaque or translucent the area is.
Experience is a great teacher; you might try making an expendable "object" with markers and paints with somewhat predictable behavior to practice on.
And post lots of questions here, of course!
best regards,
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Cindy Connelly Ryan
Library of Congress
Silver Spring MD
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Original Message:
Sent: 03-26-2026 10:16
From: Ana Gómez Uribe
Subject: Looking for MFT expertise & watercolor case studies
Hi everyone! I'm Ana Paula Gómez, writing from a museum in Bogotá, Colombia. We recently got an MFT (it seems it might be the only one in Latin America so far), and I wanted to ask if anyone could recommend an expert in MFT operation/data interpretation who might be willing to offer us some more advanced training beyond what we received from Instytut Fotonowy.
Also, I'd love to know if anyone here has worked on MFT analysis of 19th‑century watercolors. Any insights or references would be super helpful.
Thanks so much
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Ana Gómez Uribe
Storage collections manager
Banco De La Republica - Colombia
Bogotá
Colombia
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