Clemson scientist helps restore historic portrait
NORTH CHARLESTON (AP) — A Clemson University scientist is helping restore a portrait of a former South Carolina first lady.
The school says Benjamin Rennison is using 3-D scanners and digital X-ray equipment to examine a painting of Harriet Lowndes Aiken at a North Charleston lab.
Rennison is working with the Historic Charleston Foundation this week to plot a digital image of the 9-foot-by-5-foot painting.
The school says Rennison will use the scanner to see how the surface of the painting has broken down over the years.
Conservators will use his work to look at the different layers of paint and figure out a plan for restoring the piece painting by George Whiting Flagg.
Aiken was married to Gov. William Aiken, who was South Carolina’s governor in the 1840s.