Scientists have detected some surprising ingredients in pieces of lacquered furniture that will soon go on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

The catalog for “Made in the Americas: The New World Discovers Asia,” opening on Aug. 18 in Boston, analyzes luxurious pieces lacquered by 17th-century artisans with materials like mangrove bark, corncobs, guava, poppy seeds and crushed insects. “Asia in Amsterdam,” opening on Oct. 17 in Amsterdam (and traveling next year to the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass.), will feature oddities like Japanese lacquer inlaid with fish skin globules.

The Getty Conservation Institute and other research centers are collaborating on databases of lacquer ingredients and the best treatments for those antiques. Michael Schilling, a Getty senior scientist, said that recipes have even called for tofu, blood and cow bile.

In October, the Winterthur Museum in Delaware plans to hold a conference on the history and preservation of Chinese lacquer. Maria João Petisca, an organizer of the conference, said that academics in the field are poring over records to determine where objects originated and traveled.