Shellac Archive Update – Juliane Derry Thesis 2012

In the year before I retired, I sponsored a several-months-long visit by my long-time friend Juliane Derry who came from her home in Norway to spend several months at the Smithsonian’s Museum Conservation Institute to conduct research and analysis in support of her Master’s Degree in conservation from the university of Oslo.  Having made two in-person treks to India to gather samples herself, she had a wide range of vouchered specimens to analyze at MCI’s state of the art facility.

Juliane titled her Thesis “Investigating Shellac: Documenting the Process, Defining the Product.  A study on the processing methods of Shellac, and the analysis of selected physical and chemical characteristics.”

It may be the most important technical work on shellac of our generation.