Imaging Heritage Featherwork:A New Methodology for the Study of Feather Artefacts

The article discusses the use of imaging methodology in research on featherwork heritage. The project team of historians, imaging scientists and photographers, conservators and curators was the first to systematically develop an advanced imaging approach to the study of historic featherwork. The object of analysis was a highly elaborate feather fan produced either in the Low Countries or in Dutch colonial Brazil, likely around 1665, that is today held in the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge. Building on existing scholarship by biologists, conservators and ornithologists, the article discusses the extent to which imaging approaches help contextualise discussions about photosensitivity, pigmentation and the fluorescence of feathers as well as species identification. Imaging also allows for new insights into crafts knowledge, intricate manufacturing skills as well as invisible artisanal interventions, such as the use of adhesives. Moreover, imaging generates new opportunities for the conservation and display of featherwork and provides momentum for novel collaborations to be built with Indigenous descendant communities and feather practitioners today.