Handheld new technology Raman and portable FT-IR spectrometers as complementary tools for the in situ identification of organic materials in modern art

Abstract

A non-invasive approach has been carried out to characterize painting materials used in modern artworks conserved in the art collection of Carandente's museum at Palazzo Collicola in Spoleto (Italy). This work is focused on the cross-validation of the handheld BRAVO Raman spectrometer, that uses a sequentially Shifted Excitation (SSE) to mitigate fluorescence, for the characterization specifically of organic materials. The analytical procedure, combining XRF, Raman and reflection infrared spectroscopy, allowed a complete characterization of the artists' palettes; particularly eight different synthetic dyes belonging to the class of pigment red (PR) and pigment yellow (PY.), synthetic and traditional binders, such as alkyd resin and lipids have been easily identified.