New Digital Tools for Restoring Polychromy to 3D Digital Models of Sculpture

FAIN: HD-51022-10

University of Virginia (Charlottesville, VA 22903-4833)
Bernard D. Frischer (Project Director: October 2009 to February 2012)

The development of a set of tools that would allow for the accurate inclusion and display of color for Classical sculpture, using the "Augustus of Prima Porta" in the Vatican Museums as a case study.

This project proposes to create a new, powerful set of color tools--to be distributed over the Internet at no cost--that will support the work of increasing numbers of humanists who wish to restore polychromy to works of sculpture whose original pigments has been lost or compromised with the passage of time. It will use as a testbed an important work of Roman sculpture (the "Augustus of Prima Porta") whose polychromy has already been plausibly reconstructed by a noted expert serving as a consultant to the project. We will create two digital models of this important work of Roman art (one model with and one without color) which will be freely made available on our website.

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