Federico Carò

Van Gogh’s Irises and Roses : the contribution of chemical analyses and imaging to the assessment of color changes in the red lake pigments

Vincent van Gogh’s still lifes Irises and Roses were investigated to shed light onto the degree to which the paintings had changed, both individually and in relation to each other since they were painted, particularly in regard to the fading of the red lakes. Non-invasive techniques, including macroscopic X-ray fluorescence mapping, reflectance imaging spectroscopy, and X-radiography, were combined with microanalytical techniques in a select number of samples. The in-depth microchemical analysis was necessary to overcome the complications that arise when evaluating by non-invasive methods alone the compositions of passages with complex layering and mixing of paints. The results obtained by these two approaches were complemented by color measurements performed on paint cross-sections and on protected edges, and with historical information provided by the artist’s own descriptions, early reviews and reproductions, and the data was used to carry out digital color simulations that provided, to a certain extent, a visualization of how the paintings may have originally appeared.Graphical abstractIrises, 1890, Vincent van Gogh. The Metropolitan Museum of Art #58.187. Zn (upper right), Pb (bottom left), and Br (bottom right) distribution maps acquired by XRF imaging.

Early Islamic pigments at Nishapur, north-eastern Iran: studies on the painted fragments preserved at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Pigments appearing on ninth–twelfth-century AD-carved stucco, wall painting, and terracotta friezes excavated at Nishapur in north-eastern Iran were investigated by optical reflectance spectroscopy, micro X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (μ-XRF), X-ray diffractometry (XRD), micro-Raman spectroscopy (μ-Raman), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Many of the pigments identified including vermilion, red lead, hematite, limonite, carbon black, atacamite, calcite, and gypsum have been identified in previous studies of pigments used in later Islamic periods. However, a series of unusual pigments such as wulfenite, pyromorphite, phoenicochroite, and jarosite were also found in the present study. The association of kaolinite and alunite with limonite and other Fe-bearing yellow pigments points to a local provenance for these pigments. In addition, the presence of orpiment in the vermilion may be indicative that the vermilion was artificially manufactured. These findings suggest that pigment use and manufacturing during the ninth to eleventh centuries in Nishapur was still in a trial-and-error stage and the palette known from the twelfth century onwards had not yet been systematized.

Painting with recycled materials: on the morphology of calcite pseudomorphs as evidence of the use of wood ash residues in Baroque paintings

The nature of ground preparations is of critical interest to those engaging in the study of historical painting techniques, as certain materials can be identified with specific regions and school of painting. This is the case of a particular ash-based, calcite-rich material obtained as a byproduct of lye production, recently identified for the first time in ground preparations by means of chemical analysis, and which is considered specific to Baroque artists of Spanish school. Because of limitations in the size of the samples that can be removed from works of art, and because of the intrinsic variability of ash composition, chemical analysis alone may not be representative of the whole ash-containing layer, thus limiting the identification of this material. By comparing the morphology, texture and composition of calcite pseudomorphs in laboratory ash to the ground preparations in three Baroque paintings, we provide additional, unequivocal tools to identify calcite particles from ashes in paint cross sections. The results demonstrate that the chemical composition of the ash can vary, but that the morphology and size of the calcite pseudomorph crystals abundantly present in the recycled ash applied to the canvas supports are consistent and extremely characteristic. The unique polygonal shapes and skeletal morphology of the pseudomorphs and their abundance make them ideal markers to recognize ash in paintings’ ground layers, even when very limited amounts of sample are available. The study shows also that the practice of using recycled ash in the preparation of ground layers occurred outside Spain, by artists with direct or indirect Spanish lineage.

Redeeming Pieter Coecke van Aelst’s Gluttony Tapestry: Learning from Scientific Analysis

Pieter Coecke van Aelst (1502 – 1550) was one of the most celebrated Netherlandish artists of his generation.1 An important panel painter and printer of influential architectural treatises, Coecke was above all a master draftsman-designer, and the primary medium for his artistic expression was tapestry design. Tapestry series based on his cartoons were woven up by the celebrated Brussels-based workshops directed by Willem de Pannemaker and Willem de Kempeneer, as well as lesser-known weavers like Jan van der Vijst and Paulus van Oppenem, and were acquired by the great Renaissance collectors, from Henry VIII to Francis I, Mary of Hungary, Charles V, and Cosimo I de’ Medici. The three securely documented tapestry series that form the core of Pieter Coecke van Aelst’s stylistically attributed body of works are the Life of Saint Paul, the Seven Deadly Sins, and the Story of Joshua.2 These were all phenomenally successful and woven in multiple high-quality editions. The Seven Deadly Sins, in particular, is one of the most appealing and inventive series of Renaissance tapestries known, presenting a subversive triumphal procession of the vices across seven tapestries, each devoted to a different sin. Uniquely for tapestries of this period, a written program survives in a manuscript in Madrid, describing the “significance of the seven tapestries of the seven deadly sins by Willem de Pannemaker of which master Pieter of Aelst, painter of Antwerp, made the designs and compositions.”3 Coecke probably began designing the Sins in late 1532, pausing during 1533, when he traveled to Constantinople (in part on a tapestry-selling expedition to Süleyman the Magnificent), completing the design of the series after his return in early 1534. Of the earliest documented edition, woven before 1536, which belonged to Henry VIII, only Avarice survives; it is now in the Morgan Library and Museum in New York.4 Of the three best-preserved Seven Deadly Sins editions, one (Figure 1) originally belonged to Mary of Hungary (1505 – 1558), governor of the Habsburg Netherlands (1531 – 55). Made before 1544, it is now in the Spanish Patrimonio Nacional. Another (Figure 2), made about 1545, was first acquired by the unfortunate Count Lamoraal van Egmont, prince of Gavere (1522 – 1568). Follow ing Egmont’s execution, it passed to Philip II and is now also in the Patrimonio Nacional. The third, woven about 1548 – 49 and probably originally in the collection of the dukes of Lorraine, is now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.5 Since 1957, The Metropolitan Museum of Art has owned one piece of the Seven Deadly Sins that Coecke designed; it represents Gluttony and is the only known survival from this, the fifth known edition (Figure 3).6 In a breathtakingly colorful sweep of twisting figures, fantastical beasts, and patterned cloth and trappings, the figures unfurl across the tapestry’s surface.7 The textile’s well-preserved, vivid palette enlivens the full subtleties of Coecke’s design. Owing to the Redeeming Pieter Coecke van Aelst’s Gluttony Tapestry: Learning from Scientific Analysis