On the Hierarchical Use of Colourants in a 15th Century Book of Hours

Angelo Agostino,Simonetta Castronovo,Eleonora Pellizzi,Monica Gulmini,Maurizio Aceto,Giovanna Saroni

doi:10.3390/heritage4030100

Abstract

An illuminated Book of Hours (in use in Chalon-sur-Saône) currently owned by the Museo Civico di Arte Antica and displayed in the prestigious Palazzo Madama in Torino (Italy) was investigated by means of optical microscopy, fibre optic reflectance spectroscopy, fibre optic molecular fluorimetry, X-ray fluorescence spectrometry and Raman spectroscopy. The aim of the scientific survey was to expand the knowledge of the manuscript itself and on the materials and techniques employed by Antoine the Lonhy, the versatile itinerant artist who decorated the book in the 15th century. The focus was to reveal the original colourants and to investigate the pigments used in rough retouches which were visible in some of the miniatures. The investigation was carried out in situ by portable instruments according to a non-invasive analytical sequence previously developed. It was evident that the use of different pigments by the master was ruled, at least partially, by a hierarchical scheme in which more precious materials were linked to the most important characters or details in the painted scene.

Highlights

The identification of the palette is among the various tasks of the scientific examination of an illuminated manuscript
The spectral features shown by fact an important spectroscopy (FORS) analysis revealed the presence of a carbon-based pigment, but these areas yielded intense signals from copper and zinc when analysed by XRF
The results show how the different colourants were used in the decoration of the book, which may give further information and allow a comparison with the palette from the coeval manuscripts

Summary

Introduction

The identification of the palette is among the various tasks of the scientific examination of an illuminated manuscript. Techniques and materials for illumination are reported, in principle, in some ancient manuals [1,2] which sometimes use colloquial names which may not be reliable descriptors of the substances employed. A particular set of colourants, along with the compositions of the material employed, may lead to the identification of scriptoria and workshops or to the recognition of the intervention of different hands upon a series of codices or within a single manuscript. The knowledge of the materials employed expands the information available on a specific book, on the artists who decorated it and on the institutional or private clients for which the book was produced [9,10,11,12]

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Conclusion