Abstract
Establishing and understanding large format paintings are key to provide accurate information about the artist’s palette and developing conservation strategies. Therefore, investigating the artworks of a population offers insight into its culture, history and origins which reveals individual and collective identity through cultural heritage worldwide. Particularly, the ceiling of the Foyer at the National Theatre of Costa Rica (Central America) is decorated with three large format paintings from the nineteenth century made by the Italian painter Vespasiano Bignami. The paintings are known as La Poesía, La Música and La Danza (The Poetry, the Music and The Dance) and have undergone restorations in the past. However, their state of conservation is unknown and thus demands accurate scientific examination in order to document their status and the extent of undocumented previous restoration work. To overcome those issues, we propose the application of a combination of non-invasive and in-situ techniques to carry out a qualitative assessment of the pigments and actual state of conservation. Here, we employed technical photography in the visible and near infrared regions, using panoramic stitching techniques in order to obtain high resolution images of the very large artworks. Several conservation problems were observed such as: detachment of pigments, cracks, stains, and sections with undocumented restorations. In the IR and False Colour Infrared images we observed a very conspicuous behaviour of the red pigment used in the three paintings. Particular areas with the red pigment were fluorescent, and by means of ultraviolet fluorescence imaging we identified the pigment as through its red-coral fluorescence as Madder Lake, by comparison to a historical pigments reference palette. Measurements in five different red pigmented zones using UV–Vis spectroscopy in The Music show bands in the (550–650) nm region. A Lorentz Model nonlinear curve fit to the bands allowed us to correlate the fluorescent pigment in the paintings of Vespasiano Bignami with Madder Lake.
Highlights
Nature has always amazed us by the colours it generates, interpretation and use of colour have been part of humankind since ancient times and until today, as saidConejo‐Barboza et al Herit Sci (2020) 8:125Paintings are one of the most striking means that human beings have used to share our history, learning, personal beliefs and thoughts
The aim of this study is to investigate qualitatively the pictorial palette and the state of conservation of three great nineteenth century paintings at the National Theatre of Costa Rica, known as La Poesía, La Música and La Danza (The Poetry, The Music and The Dance), made by Vespasiano Bignami, through the application of low-cost, non-invasive and in-situ techniques, such as ultraviolet light (UV)–Vis spectroscopy and technical photography
Experimental set‐up We employed a combination of non-invasive techniques such as technical photography, inspection with UV radiation, and UV–Vis spectroscopy, in order to determine the state of conservation of each painting
Summary
Nature has always amazed us by the colours it generates, interpretation and use of colour have been part of humankind since ancient times and until today, as saidConejo‐Barboza et al Herit Sci (2020) 8:125Paintings are one of the most striking means that human beings have used to share our history, learning, personal beliefs and thoughts. Paintings reflect the connection between the artist and its time, in the thematic and stylistic aspects, but in the availability of art materials such as pigments, binders and varnishes. Establishing and understanding these relations are key to provide accurate information about the artist’s palette and developing conservation strategies. When combined with several mordants and salts, it produces a variety of Lake pigments with different hues of red [3] This red pigment, when found, can be used as a marker associated with the Spanish conquest, regarding the fact it was commercially available in Europe since the sixteenth century when was started to be used in paintings [4, 5]
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