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Alan Burroughs Collection of X-Radiographs

Molly Luce, American, Portrait of Alan Burroughs with X-Ray, 1925. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of Childs Gallery, Boston.

Introduction

Harvard graduate Alan Burroughs (Class of 1920) went on to become a research fellow and keeper of X-ray “shadowgraphs” at the Fogg Museum. Interested in how X-radiography could help distinguish areas that had been repainted after an artist completed an original work, between 1925 and 1944 Burroughs carried out the first systematic, large-scale X-ray documentation project for the technical study of paintings.

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Objects in Alan Burroughs Collection of X-Radiographs