Jan Steen\u2019s ground layers analysed with Principal Component Analysis

Abstract

In-depth technical and art historical research into Jan Steen’s (ca. 1626–1679) oeuvre has been a focus at the Mauritshuis since 2012, as part of the Partners in Science collaboration with Shell. The aim of this project is to shed light on the chronology of Steen’s oeuvre based on the materials he used, since only 10% of his circa 450 works are dated. Steen worked in different cities within the Netherlands (Haarlem, The Hague, Delft, Leiden and Warmond), each with a distinct artistic community. So far 39 paintings from the Mauritshuis and many other collections in and outside the Netherlands have been analysed. This paper focuses on the ground layers in Steen’s paintings. Cross sections were taken of each painting and analysed using SEM-EDX. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) on the resulting dataset was used to find correlations between variables and clustering of samples. Special versions of PCA were explored to analyse pigment identifications and to allow data fusion of this binary data with the quantitative elemental analyses, which is not trivial with normal PCA. The statistical analyses allowed us to group paintings linking them to the different cities where Steen worked and to see outliers in terms of the ground layer composition. Interestingly, the present survey also revealed that apart from commercially prepared grounds, Steen also used grounds prepared in his own studio.