The work of Smithsonian scientists, curators, and historians is essential to the 

Institution’s ability to meet the four grand challenges of the Smithsonian strategic 

plan: understanding and sustaining a biodiverse planet, unlocking the mysteries 

of the universe, valuing world cultures, and understanding the American 

experience. The following pages highlight recent achievements in research and 

celebrate the recognition of research efforts and initiatives under way at the 

Smithsonian.

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

Inspiring Generations Through Knowledge and Discovery

Rediscovering the Smithsonian’s First Collection

The Smithsonian’s first collection was a group of European 

engravings purchased by Regent George Perkins Marsh in 1849. 

Researchers, including Marsh’s biographer, have long believed 

that these engravings were destroyed in the devastating 1865 fire 

in the Castle building. However, National Museum of American 

History (NMAH) Graphic Arts Curator Helena Wright has located 

and identified some 500 of the prints within the museum’s holdings. They include priceless engravings and etchings by Durer, 

Rembrandt, and other old master artists. With assistance from 

the Smithsonian Institution Libraries staff, she also has identified 

many of Marsh’s art books in the holdings of the Smithsonian 

Libraries. When complete, Wright’s research on the Smithsonian’s 

first collection will be the basis of a comprehensive book that 

will be published within the next several years. The book will be 

supplemented by a database and website that will document the 

objects of the Smithsonian’s first collection. 

Top: Mid-19th century portrait of Smithsonian Regent George Perkins 

Marsh, engraved for his widow’s memoir, Life and Letters of George 

Perkins Marsh, published in 1888

Bottom: Adoration of the Magi, 1594 engraving by Hendrik Goltzius 

(Dutch, 1558–1617)
2

The Chigusa Jar 

In 2009, the Freer Gallery of Art 

purchased a Chinese jar widely 

revered as an icon of Japanese 

tea culture. The jar, made in 

the 13th or 14th century, was 

shipped to Japan while brand 

new, perhaps as a container 

for a commercial product. It 

was one of hundreds, possibly 

thousands, of similar jars that 

reached Japan. Once there, 

however, its fate took a turn 

after it was selected for use 

in storing dried tea leaves. 

The drinking of powdered 

green tea was a social activity 

enjoyed in the highest echelons 

of Japanese society, and the 

imported Chinese tea bowls 

and other utensils were a focus 

of intense scrutiny. Rising to 

prominence in these circles, the 

tea-leaf storage jar received 

a name derived from classical court poetry: “Chigusa” 

(Thousand Grasses). 

That name, along with tea 

diaries kept by other merchants 

who recorded their detailed 

appraisals of the jar, enabled 

researchers to trace the jar’s 

16th-century ownership by a 

series of prominent merchants 

who participated in tea drinking, collecting, and connoisseurship. Original documents 

passed down with the jar show 

that it then became the property of a leading family of tea 

masters in Kyoto at the beginning of the 17th century, after 

which it entered the collection 

of an Osaka merchant in the 

late 19th century. Also of note 

are objects that accompanied 

the jar’s accession by the Freer: 

three storage boxes, a cover 

tailored from antique Chinese 

silk, a silk macramé bag, and 

braided cords used for the 

jar’s display at tea events. This 

rich array of well-documented 

accessories is exceedingly 

rare, even among the famous 

tea jars held in Japanese 

collections. 

“Chigusa” and its complex 

of related objects and documents are the focus of an 

ongoing international research 

collaboration that will eventually result in a webinar; exhibitions at the Sackler Gallery of 

Art (scheduled for early 2014) 

and the Princeton University 

Art Museum; symposia and 

workshops; and a major publication that will present everything that has been learned 

about this remarkable jar. This 

collaboration got under way 

with a January 2011 workshop 

that was held at the Freer 

and supported by the Toshiba 

International Foundation. 

Japanese specialists Takeuchi 

Jun’ichi and Oka Yoshiko; 

American scholar Andrew 

Watsky of Princeton University; 

and Freer and Sackler Galleries 

curators Louise Cort and Jim 

Ulak convened to emulate 

the 16th-century diarists in 

scrutinizing “Chigusa” and its 

components. An international 

webinar was held later in 2011 

that brought together scholars 

and Japanese ceramic enthusiasts from all over the world to 

examine aspects of the jar and 

its historic and artistic context. 

In April 2012, Cort and Watsky 

held a workshop on “Chigusa” 

and all of its accoutrements 

for a group of about 45 scholars of Japanese art at a study 

day held in conjunction with 

the Artist in Edo symposium, 

cosponsored by the Freer 

and Sackler Galleries and the 

Center for the Advanced Study 

of the Visual Arts (CASVA) at 

the National Gallery of Art. 

The scholars were completely 

fascinated by the object and 

the research that is unfolding around it, a testimony to 

the value of the collaborative 

research project designed 

around this important object. 

“The Chigusa Jar,” c. 13th–14th 

century Chinese commercial 

container adapted for Japanese 

tea drinking, collecting, and 

connoisseurship
3

Colombia Research Collaboration 

Over a seven-year period from 2003 to 

2010, Center for Folklife and Cultural 

Heritage (CFCH) curatorial staff collaborated 

with the Colombian Ministry of Culture, 

the nonprofit Fundación Erigaie research 

institute in Bogotá, and individual cultural 

experts to research, document, explore, and 

present regional Colombian folklife traditions. The collaboration resulted in the 2011 

Smithsonian Folklife Festival “living” exhibition Colombia: The Nature of Culture, which 

convened 100 cultural practitioners for 10 

days on the National Mall, and award-winning 

recordings of traditional Colombian music. 

Smithsonian Folkways Recordings blazed 

the way in 2003 by researching and recording traditional Colombian music in some of 

the same regions later featured in the Folklife 

Festival. The initial years of research produced 

five recordings of music from the eastern 

Orinoco river plains, the Afro-descendants of the 

Pacific littoral, and two traditions of the northern Caribbean coast. The recordings earned 

one GRAMMY nomination, one Latin GRAMMY 

award, and other music industry honors.

Building on this work, Folklife Festival curator Dr. 

Olivia Cadaval spearheaded the effort to work 

with the Fundación Erigaie, supported by the 

Ministry of Culture, to carry out the research 

and fieldwork for a major Folklife Festival 

program. The Folklife Festival project team 

included researchers, curators, artists, translators, photographers, videographers, educators, engineers, and educators from the United 

States and Colombia. From 2008 to 2011, they 

worked together to conceptualize, research, 

and produce the Festival exhibition. Using 

Smithsonian research methodology, Colombian 

researchers recommended traditions that would 

best illustrate the relationship between culture 

and environment, knowledgeable practitioners 

skilled in their art or trade, and contexts for 

presentation that could evoke home settings. 

Colombia: The Nature of Culture featured more 

than 100 cultural practitioners presenting live 

performances, demonstrations, workshops, and 

discussion sessions representing six ecosystems 

and three cities. The program attracted an audience of one million visitors.

The project and the collaboration with the 

Ministry of Culture and Colombian cultural 

experts endure. Research enriched the Ministry 

of Culture’s database on intangible cultural 

heritage. The Smithsonian research methodology and approach has been implemented to do 

new fieldwork research in some of the other 

Colombian ecosystems. Artesanias de Colombia 

has tapped the research base to do portfolios for 

the craft artists that came to the Festival to help 

promote their art. Elements of the program 

were restaged in Bogotá and Medellín, and some 

of the giant bamboo structures made for the 

Festival were featured in the recent Summit of 

the Americas in Cartagena. An online version 

of the Festival program is currently in production, and Smithsonian Folkways Recordings is 

planning future recordings of music from other 

Colombian regions. 

Basketmaker from Filandia in central Colombia, pictured 

at a crafts fair 
4

Research on the Inka Road: Chawaytiri Self-ethnography Project

A collaboration between 

the National Museum of the 

American Indian (NMAI) and 

the Quechua indigenous (ayllu) 

community of Chawaytiri, in 

the Peruvian Andes, has generated substantial ethnographic 

research material for the 

museum’s Inka Road exhibition project. Elder families of 

Chawaytiri, a “people of the 

llama,” asked Jose Barreiro, 

NMAI Director for Offices for 

Latin America, to film a traditional llama caravan. The effort 

will contribute to the elders’ 

documentation of the ceremonial and economic practices of 

the Andean way of life, including the rituals of “ayni” and 

“mink’a,” ancient concepts of 

reciprocity among individuals, 

families, and communities that 

are based on in situ cosmological significance, time-tested 

agricultural practices, and 

social sustainability. 

The families documented the 

cycle of ceremonies required 

when preparing for a llama 

caravan in the presence of 

specific mountain “apus” 

(deities) and the revered 

Pachamama (Mother Earth). 

Walking their llamas on the 

old Inka Road, the Antisuyu 

route to the jungle region, 

one of the four provinces of 

the ancient Tawantinsuyu, the 

people of Chawaytiri recorded 

a living memory of an ancient 

and core tradition. This work 

of “living indigenous culture” 

documentation and enhancement has resulted in a fulllength documentary, “Caravan 

of Memory,” scheduled to 

premiere this fall. 

The initiative in Chawaytiri 

forms part of a broader integrative context of “living community” work by the National 

Museum of the American 

Indian in Peru. Chawaytiri is 

one of 12 Quechua agricultural 

communities that feed into the 

Pisac Indigenous Community 

Museum, a project instigated 

by Dr. Ramiro Matos in 2004 

and inaugurated with the 

communities by the NMAI and 

the Inter-American Foundation 

in September, 2009. The 

community museum, first of 

its kind in Peru, is a model 

in the hemispheric indigenous community museum 

movement. A philosophy 

of economic empowerment 

through cultural awareness, 

research and education, and 

self-interpretation and selfrepresentation is at the core of 

this community museum movement initiative.

Elder families of the Quechua 

indigenous community of 

Chawaytiri take part in a 

traditional llama caravan
5

Conservation Research Highlights 

At the Hirshhorn Museum and 

Sculpture Garden (HMSG), 

recent conservation research 

has resulted in significant 

insights to several artists’ 

methods and materials, as well 

as supported the development 

of conservation treatments for 

important works in the museum’s collection. Highlights of 

HMSG conservation research 

projects follow. 

HMSG Sculpture Conservator 

Gwynne Ryan, in collaboration 

with the veterinary team at the 

National Zoo and the Capitol 

Police bomb squad unit, took 

x-radiographs of Warrior’s Leg, 

a fragile wax and plaster cast 

by artist Paul Thek, and Venus 

of the Rags, a life-sized plaster 

cast by Michelangelo Pistoletto. 

The resulting images greatly 

enhanced existing understanding of the artists’ working 

methods and revealed hidden 

areas of vulnerability in the 

construction of the artworks. 

In the case of Warrior’s Leg, a 

weak connection between the 

foot and the base was identified. The images of Venus of 

the Rags identified the configuration and placement of an 

embedded internal armature, 

as well as inherent structural 

weaknesses. With this information, conservators identified 

alternative treatment options, 

revised housing and storage 

recommendations, updated 

handling guidelines, and placed 

both sculptures on the museum’s restricted lending list. 

As part of the Getty 

Conservation Institute’s 

Modern Paintings Project, 

HMSG Chief Conservator 

and Director of Collection 

Management Susan Lake is 

collaborating in a number of 

case studies that are being 

conducted on the materials 

used by several important 

20th-century painters. The 

first study, a systematic examination of Willem de Kooning’s 

paintings from the 1940s 

through the 1960s, applied a 

range of instrumental analytical 

techniques (GCMS, SEM-EDS, 

FTIR, and PLM) to identify the 

artist’s pigments, binders, and 

supports, the results of which 

were published in Dr. Lake’s 

book Willem de Kooning: The 

Artist’s Materials. Selected 

essays on de Kooning’s 

methods and materials were 

also published in the Museum 

of Modern Art exhibition 

catalogue, de Kooning: a 

Retrospective. Similar studies 

of the painting materials of 

Clyfford Still and Morris Louis 

are ongoing. 

Partnering with the 

Smithsonian 3D Charter 

Collection, Sculpture 

Conservator Gwynne Ryan is 

attempting to devise a safe 

conservation treatment for 

Lunar Landscape, an extraordinarily rare relief sculpture by Japanese-American 

artist Isamu Noguchi. For 

his “Lunar” series, Noguchi 

created fantastic moon-like 

topographical sculptures 

made of cast magnesium 

cement that are often 

internally illuminated and 

crisscrossed by string and 

bobbing corks that hover like 

satellites. 

The Hirshhorn is no longer able 

to show Lunar Landscape due 

to a series of structural cracks 

in the brittle cement material. 

Using 3D scanning technology, 

a cradle will be constructed 

that will allow conservators 

to safely invert the sculpture, 

access its reverse side, and 

stabilize the cracks and repair 

faulty wiring. If the treatment 

is successful, the sculpture will 

be placed back on view in its 

permanent gallery of Surrealist 

art, as well as be included as a 

key work in an upcoming exhibition of Surrealist sculptures 

coorganized by the Hirshhorn 

and the Musée national d’art 

moderne (Centre Pompidou). 

Radiograph of Michelangelo 

Pistoletto’s plaster figure Venus of 

the Rags, 1967
6

Smithsonian Institution Libraries and the National Postal Museum Contribute to 

Philatelic Research Online Library Catalog Collaboration

On February 15, 1888, American Philatelic 

Society President John Tiffany wrote to Edward 

Denny Bacon, Secretary of the Royal Philatelic 

Society London (RPSL), regarding a joint indexing project. He said: “I consider the project as 

utterly impossible of any practical execution.” 

One hundred and twenty-four years later, the 

“impractical “project has become a reality.

The Smithsonian Institution Libraries (SIL) and 

the National Postal Museum have agreed to 

share library data with the Royal Philatelic 

Society London and the American Philatelic 

Research Library. This partnership is the beginning of a “one-stop” global philatelic research 

online library catalog, www.globalphilateliclibrary.org. The site was developed as a centralized information portal through which philatelists around the world can access philatelic 

research from partner libraries in real time, using 

any computer.

The Smithsonian was the first to partner with 

the RPSL, and other international libraries have 

since joined. Official contributing membership has grown to 12 individual societies in the 

United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Norway, 

and Germany. 

SIL has expanded access to its inventory by 

sharing some non-traditional library metadata 

from their “hidden collection” of small journals. 

Work continues between SIL and the American 

Philatelic Research Library to combine traditional 

library holdings data with various philatelic 

society libraries. As this global project continues, additional international libraries will be 

added and the website upgraded with improved 

search capabilities.

Early Alexandria History Rediscovered

While conducting research for the upcoming American Enterprise exhibition, National 

Museum of American History (NMAH) curator 

Nancy Davis and Goldman Sachs Fellow Kathleen 

Franz uncovered important 18th- and early 

19th-century business records of William 

Ramsay, a merchant and founder of Alexandria, 

Virginia. Although the records have long been in 

the NMAH Archives, they had never been closely 

examined. Ramsay kept detailed accounts of 

his 1753–1756 mercantile activity in a 900-page 

account ledger that provides an unparalleled view of the economic life in a colonial 

city. Within the documents, Davis and Franz 

located the sheepskin incorporation papers of 

Alexandria, letters from George Washington’s 

secretary Tobias Lear on issues of bankruptcy 

in the new Republic, and correspondence with 

Patrick Henry and other prominent citizens.

Tobias Lear, Secretary to President George 

Washington, addressed this letter on the issue of 

bankruptcy laws to William Ramsay’s son-in-law, 

Michael Madden 
7

Smithsonian Research Reaches Millions 

The widespread reach of Smithsonian science is remarkable. The following pages 

celebrate the recognition of research efforts and initiatives through top-tier 

publishing in the world’s leading outlets for scientific news, commentary and 

research. 

The first Secretary, Joseph 

Henry, forged the Smithsonian 

as the country’s foremost 

research institute and facilitator of global scientific dialogue. 

That tradition continues today.

Smithsonian science examines many of the world’s 

most complex, dire and timesensitive problems such as 

climate change, biodiversity 

and Zoonic diseases. In dozens 

of disciplines, the Smithsonian 

drives scholarship, expands 

partnership and “increases and 

diffuses” knowledge. 

Progress in science demands 

the sharing of results within the 

scientific community as early as 

possible. Scientists distribute 

their results so that others may 

build on previous work to move 

knowledge forward. 

Most established academic 

disciplines have their own 

journals and other outlets for 

publication of that knowledge. 

Along with the variation in 

review and publication procedures, the kinds of publications 

that are accepted as contributions to research differ greatly 

among fields and subfields.

Top among the interdisciplinary journals are Science, Nature

and PNAS (the Proceedings 

of the National Academy 

of Sciences). These leading 

weekly journals publish original 

scientific research and research 

reviews, science-related news, 

opinions on science policy and 

other matters of interest to 

scientists and others who are 

concerned with the wide implications of science and technology. Unlike most scientific journals, which focus on a specific 

field, Science, Nature and PNAS 

cover the full range of scientific 

disciplines.

A published work in these 

top-tier journals carries highly 

competitive peer-reviewed 

credibility and visibility reaching millions online and in print. 

Journals are measured by 

statistical metrics of their influence, calculated by the average 

number the citations given 

to those papers in a journal. 

Science, Nature and PNAS are 

the most frequently cited and 

have by far and away the most 

overall influence on science.

Sharing Smithsonian science 

with the world helps to 

achieve our strategic goals of 

Understanding and Sustaining 

a Biodiverse Planet and 

Unlocking the Mysteries of the 

Universe. Placement within the 

scientific community’s most 

prestigious journals creates a 

multiplier effect to advance this 

mission. Many of the publications are also covered by the 

mainstream media.

Nearly every Smithsonian 

scientific discipline has been 

published within these top-tier 

journals with an impressive 

number of publications over 

the last 10 years:

» Nature: 105 publications

» PNAS: 163 publications

» Science: 228 publications

From Paleozoic Ecology to 

the extraterrestrial origin of 

a natural quasicrystal, nearly 

all Smithsonian research units 

have earned this world-wide 

attention, many with cover 

stories in 2012 alone. 

The next pages provide a 

glimpse of Smithsonian science 

shared through the most prestigious, competitive journals of 

the world. 
8

Dr. Nicholas Pyenson is the Curator of Fossil Marine Mammals 

at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and 

studies the paleobiology of marine mammals, and, more broadly, 

of other marine tetrapods. 

Dr. Pyenson and his colleagues discovered a sensory organ in 

rorqual whales’ chins that help them consume millions of fish 

through a complex, rapid filtration of vast amounts of water.

The research on the newly discovered organ earned the cover of 

the May 24 issue of Nature.

Earlier this year, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory 

research earned top billing on the cover of Nature. The February 

9 cover story research highlighted physicists use of the planethunting space observatory Kepler to discover extrasolar planets in 

orbit around the Sun-like star Kepler-20. 

Smithonian Science Earns Top Billing

JOURNAL              2003 AL 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012*

Nature 9 14 14 10 10 10 13 4 15 6

PNAS 9 7 12 15 17 27 29 20 20 7

Science 19 2 19 29 31 36 17 17 27 10

A 10-Year Look at Coverage in Three Premiere Scientific Journals

* 2012 publications to date (through early June 2012).

A Small Collective 

Some people are surprised to learn that beyond museums, the 

Smithsonian is also a leading science institution with more than 

500 scientists working in astrophysics, biodiversity, climate 

change, and more. 

The relatively small collective of 500 scientists yields an impressive output. From July 2011 to June 2012, Science, Nature and 

PNAS included publications from the following Smithsonian units:

Nature: 

Volume 485, Number 7399 and 

Volume 482 Number 7384.

» MCI: 1

» NASM: 4

» NMNH: 27

» NZP: 1

» SAO: 9

» SERC: 2

» STRI: 17
9

Smithsonian Science in the Mainstream Media

The Office of Public Affairs works daily to promote Smithsonian science and to garner coverage 

in mainstream media as well as on blogs and social media. Recent science coverage highlights in 

the traditional media include:

Two features in the New York Times:

» Smithsonian scientists discover why the Hope Diamond is blue

» A secret behind the whale’s mighty gulp

Two features on MSNBC:

» Smithsonian research into invasive Burmese pythons eating bird eggs in the Everglades

» Research of multiple ancient species of seacows once cohabitating in three separate areas 

of the world

In addition to proactively pitching stories to reporters, and promoting Smithsonian science on 

the web, the office also hosts quarterly Smithson Science Media Briefings where journalists go 

behind-the-scenes to learn about different projects at the Smithsonian. The goal is for media 

representatives to see places at the Smithsonian they normally would not get to see and to meet 

researchers they typically would not get to meet — thus broadening their understanding of 

science at the Smithsonian. 

In late March, the briefing was held in the Department of Mammals at the National Museum of 

Natural History focusing on that collection and how it serves a resource to Smithsonian scientists 

and others. A media briefing held on June 21, at the Freer | Sackler Galleries (F|S), showcased 

Smithsonian science in unexpected places. In addition to touring the conservation and restoration labs at F│S, media also met two staff scientists and learned about their work.

Science: Founded in 1880 by 

the inventor Thomas Edison, 

Science publishes the very 

best in scientific research, 

news and opinion and has the 

largest paid circulation of any 

peer-reviewed science journal. 

International in scope, 35 to 40 

percent of contributing authors 

based outside the US. Its high 

standards of peer review and 

editorial quality translate into 

stiff competition. The journal 

accepts less than 7 percent of 

all papers submitted. Science is 

published by the American Association for the Advancement 

of Science, the world’s largest 

general science society which 

serves more than 10 million 

individuals.

Nature: Founded in 1869, 

Nature is edited and published 

in the United Kingdom by 

Nature Publishing Group (NPG), 

a subsidiary of Macmillan 

Publishers. Nature is independent of any scientific society 

or institution. Editors employ 

a rigorous selection criteria to 

select only 8 percent of the 200 

papers submitted each week. 

Focusing on the needs of scientists, NPG publishes journals, 

online databases and services 

across the life, physical, chemical and applied sciences and 

clinical medicine. Nature.com 

provides over 6 million visitors 

per month with access to NPG 

publications and services.

PNAS: Established in 1914, 

PNAS, the official journal of 

the US National Academy of 

Sciences, is an authoritative 

source of high-impact, original 

research that broadly spans the 

biological, physical, and social 

sciences. The journal is published daily online in PNAS Early 

Edition and weekly in print. The 

National Academy of Sciences 

is an honorific society comprising nearly 2,200 members and 

more than 400 foreign associates. New members are elected 

annually in recognition of their 

distinguished research achievements. PNAS has a 19 percent 

acceptance rate, but all papers 

must be transmitted by an 

Academy member. 

Most Competitive, Frequently Cited Journals