Use of the LIBS method in oil paintings examination based on examples of analyses conducted at the Wilanow Palace Museum

Elżbieta Modzelewska; Agnieszka Pawlak; Anna Selerowicz; Wojciech Skrzeczanowski; Jan Marczak

doi:10.1117/12.2020694

30 May 2013 Use of the LIBS method in oil paintings examination based on examples of analyses conducted at the Wilanow Palace Museum

Elżbieta Modzelewska, Agnieszka Pawlak, Anna Selerowicz, Wojciech Skrzeczanowski, Jan Marczak

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 8790, Optics for Arts, Architecture, and Archaeology IV; 879005 (2013) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2020694
Event: SPIE Optical Metrology 2013, 2013, Munich, Germany

Abstract

This paper describes the preliminary results of a study of the paint layers in 17th-century paintings belonging to the collection of the Wilanow Palace Museum. The works chosen for examination are of great importance to the Museum, as they might have been painted by court artists of King John III Sobieski. The aim of the study was therefore to determine the technological structure of the paintings, to determine the scope of conservation interventions and, above all, to gather comparative material that would serve to conduct further multidisciplinary attributive research. The presentation relates to studies in which laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) and optical microscopy were used as diagnostic tools. LIBS is based on the evaporation of a small amount of the material under investigation, and the generation of plasma which emits continuum and line radiation. The analysis of line radiation allows us to identify the elements appearing in the sample being investigated. The microscope pictures were taken using a Bresser Digital Hand Micro 1.3Mpx and the Hirox 8700 microscopes. The results obtained have confirmed the utility of the LIBS method in the study of artworks. They have also proven that it can be used as a method to complement microchemical analysis, as well as an method to identify and examine artworks from which samples cannot be taken, as it is micro-destructive and the analysis can be conducted directly on the object, without the need to take samples.

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Elżbieta Modzelewska, Agnieszka Pawlak, Anna Selerowicz, Wojciech Skrzeczanowski, and Jan Marczak "Use of the LIBS method in oil paintings examination based on examples of analyses conducted at the Wilanow Palace Museum", Proc. SPIE 8790, Optics for Arts, Architecture, and Archaeology IV, 879005 (30 May 2013); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2020694

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