Curvelet Analysis — Basically curvelet gives you information about contours or lines in images, describing them in terms of location, direction, and offset as line segments. The idea originated from Stanford Statistics Dept. by Prof. Donoho. (Thanks Nick for the definition info!)
See also:
The Rembrandt Code — an article in Wired magazine about Dan Rockmore and work he’s done for The Met
Curvelet.org — Links and papers on curvelets.