Abstract
A polychrome and gilded wooden artifact was found, in a heavily deteriorated state, in the stores of the Mdina Cathedral Museum, Malta. The object represents two zoomorphic angels holding a coat of arms. Stylistically, the artifact matches with parts of a late 16th century Organ balcony, currently exhibited at the same Museum. The present study aims to establish whether or not the newly recovered artifact might have formed part of the balcony ensemble by means of material identification techniques. The combined use of XRF, FT-IR and FT-Raman spectroscopy ensure a detailed characterization of the material used. In the case of pigments, for both artifacts the blue pigment was smalt, while cinnabar was used for red and flesh tones. The metallic decorative parts of the panels are gilded, confirmed by the presence of Au peaks in the X-ray spectra. The supporting structure of both artifacts was manufactured from poplar wood.
Highlights
Recent years have seen an increasing number of cases where a variety of analytic methods have been introduced for the characterization of pigments and manufacturing techniques of polychrome art works, such as paintings and sculptures
Pigments were first identified by means of X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis according to the X-ray characteristic energies in each spectrum, corresponding to specific chemical elements
The blue pigment The results of the blue pigment analysis revealed a significant presence of Co and other elements such as Ni and As and traces of Bi
Summary
Recent years have seen an increasing number of cases where a variety of analytic methods have been introduced for the characterization of pigments and manufacturing techniques of polychrome art works, such as paintings and sculptures. For black, the presence of iron may suggest either ochre or another iron-containing pigment (e.g., Black Ochre: a mixture of a native impure oxide of carbon called black mineral, iron and alluvial clay, or Mars Black: Fe3O4 iron oxide pigment developed in the 20th century).[4]. This methodology presents, a number of risks owing to the possibility of identifying several pigments containing the same element or elements, or even identifying a pigment only because in the XRF spectrum the elements appear to be present together, while they may be present in separate layers. A complementary use of the above mentioned techniques was applied during the restoration process of two 16th century polychrome wood artifacts to establish by material identification if they are part of the same ensemble
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