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Publications (51)
Micro-samples collected on 28 major paintings by Old European Masters dating from the Middle Ages to the late 19th c. were analyzed using Synchrotron-based X-ray diffraction. Two complementary analytical configurations were used at beamlines ID22 (high-angle resolution) and ID21 (high lateral resolution), in order to highlight markers of the differ...
The Night Watch, painted in 1642 and on view in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, is considered Rembrandt's most famous work. X‐ray powder diffraction (XRPD) mapping at multiple length scales revealed the unusual presence of lead(II) formate, Pb(HCOO)2, in several areas of the painting. Until now, this compound was never reported in historical oil pain...
Rembrandt (1606–1669) is renowned for his impasto technique, involving his use of lead white paint with outstanding rheological properties. This paint was obtained by combining lead white pigment (a mixture of cerussite PbCO3 and hydrocerussite Pb3(CO3)2(OH)2) with an organic binding medium, but the exact formulation used by Rembrandt remains a mys...
This article reports on the discovery of pararealgar and semi-amorphous pararealgar in Rembrandt's masterpiece The Night Watch. A large-scale research project named Operation Night Watch was started in 2019. A variety of non-invasive analytical imaging techniques, together with paint sample research, has provided new information about Rembrandt's p...
Collecter des informations chimiques sur les matériaux employés par Léonard de Vinci permet de mieux comprendre la matérialité de ses pratiques picturales et fournit de nouvelles informations pouvant contribuer à la conservation de ses œuvres. Mais les peintures de Léonard sont des systèmes chimiques complexes, assemblages hybrides de pigments miné...
The Night Watch , one of the most famous masterpieces by Rembrandt, is the subject of a large research and conservation project. For the conservation treatment, it is of great importance to understand its current condition. Correlated nano-tomography using x-ray fluorescence and ptychography revealed a—so far unknown—lead-containing “layer”, which...
Macroscopic x-ray fluorescence imaging spectroscopy (MA-XRF) and reflectance imaging spectroscopy (RIS) are important tools in the analysis of cultural heritage objects, both for conservation and art historical research purposes. The elemental and molecular distributions provided by MA-XRF and RIS respectively, are particularly useful for the ident...
The Night Watch, painted in 1642 and on view
in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, is considered
Rembrandt’s most famous work. X-ray powder diffrac-
tion (XRPD) mapping at multiple length scales revealed
the unusual presence of lead(II) formate, Pb(HCOO)2,
in several areas of the painting. Until now, this
compound was never reported in historical oil pa...
Most inorganic pigments, as earths and ochres, have no luminescence emission. Sporadically, the literature has reported the presence of a weak optical emission for some of these pigments. However, this should be attributed to the presence of material impurities within pigments. In addition to this, a small number of inorganic pigments exhibit a cle...
The Night Watch, painted in 1642 and on view in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, is considered Rembrandt’s most famous work. X‐ray powder diffraction (XRPD) mapping at multiple length scales revealed the unusual presence of lead(II) formate, Pb(HCOO)2, in several areas of the painting. Until now, this compound was never reported in historical oil pain...
Synthetic lead carbonates, cerussite and hydrocerussite, have been used for artistic and cosmetic purposes since Antiquity. Commonly known as lead white, the recipes for the manufacture of this pigment are recounted in many treatises on painting. Depending on the period considered, these two lead carbonates are derived either from a corrosion proce...
Recent studies in which X-ray beams of (sub)micrometre to millimetre dimensions have been used for non-destructive analysis and characterization of pigments, minute paint samples and/or entire paintings from fifteenth to twentieth century artists are discussed. The overview presented encompasses the use of laboratory and synchrotron radiation-based...
An innovative approach involving a collection of experiments to mimic and assess the different conditions (at selected time-pH-[Mg²⁺]-humidity) existing during the carbonation process in dolomitic mortars is proposed with a combination of micro-analytical imaging techniques, namely: optical and electron microscopy, micro-Fourier-Transform Infrared...
The cultural heritage community is increasingly exploring synchrotron radiation (SR) based techniques for the study of art and archaeological objects. When considering heterogeneous and complex micro-samples, such as those from paintings, the combination of different SR X-ray techniques is often exploited to overcome the intrinsic limitations and s...
The European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) has recently commissioned the new Extremely Brilliant Source (EBS). The gain in brightness as well as the continuous development of beamline instruments boosts the beamline performances, in particular in terms of accelerated data acquisition. This has motivated the development of new access modes a...
Visible and infrared reflectance imaging spectroscopy is one of the several non-invasive techniques used during Operation Night Watch for the study of Rembrandt’s iconic masterpiece The Night Watch (1642). The goals of this project include the identification and mapping of the artists’ materials, providing information about the painting technique u...
Extended version of Table 1: overview of the paintings from which green and blue samples were taken and their compostions
Jan Steen, a prolific Dutch 17th-century artist, has been the focus of a research project at the Mauritshuis since 2012. The aim of the research project is to shed light on the chronology of his works based on the materials he used. Samples of green and blue areas on 37 paintings were analysed using optical microscopy, SEM–EDX and synchrotron μ-XRD...
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) is a key artistic and scientific figure of the Renaissance. He is renowned for his science of art, taking advantage of his acute observations of nature to achieve striking pictorial results. This study describes the analysis of an exceptional sample from one of Leonardo’s final masterpieces: The Virgin and Child with S...
Significance
Ink, invented in ancient Egypt circa 5,000 y ago, is the established and time-honored medium wherewith humankind commits words to writing. A comprehensive synchrotron-based microanalysis of a considerable corpus of ancient Egyptian papyri from the Roman period, inscribed with red and black inks, reveal a hitherto undetected complex com...
The nonplanar shape of a painting as well as practical constraints often result in the painting's surface not being parallel to the plane in that the measurement head of a MA-XRF scanner is being moved. Changing the working distance affects the measurement geometry, so that the sensitivity for the same element may vary throughout the investigated a...
The in-situ formation of lead-sulfur inorganic compounds in historical oil paintings can have a strong detrimental effect on an artwork’s physical and visual integrity. In this paper, paint micro-samples collected from several paintings from the Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam) and Mauritshuis (The Hague) collections were probed at the micro-scale using a c...
Ultramarine blue pigment, one of the most valued natural artist’s pigments, historically was prepared from lapis lazuli rock following various treatments; however, little is understood about why or how to distinguish such a posteriori on paintings. X-ray absorption near-edge structure spectroscopy at the sulfur K-edge in microbeam and full-field mo...
Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675) is known for his brilliant blue colours, and his frequent use of the costly natural ultramarine. This paper reveals new findings about ultramarine in the headscarf of Girl with a Pearl Earring (c. 1665, Mauritshuis). The painting was examined using a range of micro- and macroscale techniques as part of the Girl in the S...
X‐ray diffraction mapping shows very promising result for the investigation of artistic materials. The technique consists in acquiring XRD patterns at each pixel of a two‐dimensional area being either at the macro‐ or at the microscale. Different types of information can then be extracted from individually collected XRD patterns and employed to com...
X‐ray diffraction (XRD) mapping consists in the acquisition of XRD patterns at each pixel (or voxel) of an area (or volume). The spatial resolution ranges from the micrometer (μXRD) to the millimeter (MA‐XRD) scale, making the technique relevant for tiny samples up to large objects. Although XRD is primarily used for the identification of different...
The soft modelling of the skin tones in Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring (Mauritshuis) has been remarked upon by art historians, and is their main argument to date this painting to c. 1665. This paper describes the materials and techniques Vermeer used to accomplish the smooth flesh tones and facial features of the Girl, which were investigated...
The use of non-invasive macroscopic imaging techniques is becoming more prevalent in the field of cultural heritage, especially to avoid invasive procedures that damage valuable artworks. For this purpose, an X-ray powder diffraction scanner (MA-XRPD) capable of visualising crystalline compounds in a highly specific manner was recently developed. M...
Until the 19th century, lead white was the most important white pigment used in oil paintings. Lead white is typically composed of two crystalline lead carbonates: hydrocerussite [2PbCO 3 ·Pb(OH) 2 ] and cerussite (PbCO 3 ). Depending on the ratio between hydrocerussite and cerussite, lead white can be classified into different subtypes, each with...
Lead carbonates were used as cosmetic and pigment since Antiquity. The pigment, known as lead white, was generally composed of cerussite and hydrocerussite. Unlike most ancient pigments, lead white was obtained by a synthetic route involving metallic lead, vinegar and organic matter. Fermentation of organic matter produces heat and CO 2 emission, l...
Rembrandt is renowned for his impasto, a paint with outstanding rheological properties, the exact formulation of which has remained a mystery. In their Communication (DOI: 10.1002/anie.201813105), V. Gonzalez et al. used synchrotron X-ray diffraction to investigate microscopic samples from Rembrandt masterpieces; a rare lead compound, plumbonacrite...
Rembrandt ist bekannt für seine Impasto, eine Farbe mit hervorragenden rheologischen Eigenschaften, deren genaue Formulierung ein Rätsel geblieben ist. V. Gonzalez et al. beschreiben in ihrer Zuschrift (DOI: 10.1002/ange.201813105) die Verwendung von Synchrotron‐Röntgenbeugung zur Analyse mikroskopischer Proben von Rembrandt‐Gemälden; eine seltene...
Rembrandt is renowned for his impasto, a paint with outstanding rheological properties, the exact formulation of which has remained a mystery. In their Communication (DOI: 10.1002/anie.201813105), V. Gonzalez et al. used synchrotron X‐ray diffraction to investigate microscopic samples from Rembrandt masterpieces; a rare lead compound, plumbonacrite...
Rembrandt (1606‐1669) is renowned for his impasto technique, involving his use of lead white paint with outstanding rheological properties offering some 3D modeling possibilities. This was obtained by combining lead white pigment (a mixture of cerussite PbCO3, and hydrocerussite Pb3(CO3)2(OH)2) with an organic binding medium, but the exact formulat...
Traditional “stack “manufacturing process (16–19th c.) of lead white pigment by lead corrosion is explored by exposing metal to acetic acid, carbon dioxide, dioxygen and water vapor. Global reaction scheme is revealed, along with stratification of corrosion products with CO2 gradient, leading to flakiness of corrosion layer. Kinetic and epitaxial f...
In conservation, science semiconductors occur as the constituent matter of the so-called semiconductor pigments, produced following the Industrial Revolution and extensively used by modern painters. With recent research highlighting the occurrence of various degradation phenomena in semiconductor paints, it is clear that their detection by conventi...
Analytical techniques using proton beams with energy in the MeV range are commonly used to study archeological artefact and artistic objects. However ion beams can induce alteration of fragile materials, which is notably the case of easel paintings, limiting the use of these techniques. We used continuous wave EPR and pulse EPR spectroscopy to reve...
The lead white pigment, composed of two main mineral phases cerussite PbCO3 and hydrocerussite 2PbCO3.Pb(OH)2, has been used in paintings since the Antiquity. The study of historical sources revealed that a large variety of lead white qualities were proposed, depending on the degree of sophistication of the pigment synthesis. Investigation of photo...
Le pigment blanc de plomb, composé de deux phases cristallines carbonates de plomb (cérusite PbCO3 et hydrocérusite 2PbCO3.Pb(OH)2) est synthétisé et utilisé en peinture depuis l'Antiquité. L'étude des sources historiques révèle que les artistes pouvaient se procurer des qualités variées de ce matériau, selon le degré de sophistication de la synthè...
Scanning XRF is a powerful elemental imaging technique introduced at the synchrotron that has recently been transposed to laboratory. The growing interest in this technique stems from its ability to collect images reflecting pigment distribution within large areas on artworks by means of their elemental signature. In that sense, scanning XRF appear...
Fifteen lead white-containing painting samples, about 1-3μg in weight, from a selection of easel painting masterpieces of the Louvre and other French museums, dating from the Renaissance to the late 19th century, were investigated using synchrotron diffraction on the ESRF high resolution XRD beamline ID22. The Rietveld analysis revealed the nature...
This work focuses on the composition and microstructure of the lead white pigment employed in a set of paintworks, using a combination of l-XRD and 2D scanning XRF, directly applied on five drapery studies attributed to Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) and conserved in the Département des Arts Graphiques, Musée du Louvre and in the Musée des Beaux-Art...
A sample booklet composed of 57 samples of pre-primed canvases sold by the color merchant Binant in Paris at the end of the 19th century was studied in order to link commercial names used by manufacturers and artists with their material identity. The features of the canvases and grounds of some of these samples allow new insights into commercial pr...
