Week 3 Seminar: Materials lab

Handling period-correct paper, silk and pigment samples under Idris's supervision, and reading a real fibre-analysis report.

8 March 2027

Before the seminar#

Read the linked short-form materials-analysis case report (on the course drive). Bring one question about a claim in it you don’t yet know how to evaluate.

In the seminar#

Idris runs a small hands-on station: paper and silk samples of different ages under magnification, and a walk-through of how a real fibre or pigment report gets produced. The second half works through your assigned case report line by line, separating what the underlying test actually measured from what the report’s prose claims it proves.

Afterwards#

Materials evidence is one of the two independent legs of the attribution note (the other is brushwork, from week 4). If you’re leaning on a materials claim in your note, it should survive the same “what does the data actually show” test you just ran on someone else’s report.