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

M Vagnini; F Gabrieli; A Daveri; D Sali

doi:10.1016/j.saa.2017.01.006

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

Spectrochim Acta A Mol Biomol Spectrosc. 2017 Apr 5:176:174-182. doi: 10.1016/j.saa.2017.01.006. Epub 2017 Jan 5.

Authors

M Vagnini¹, F Gabrieli², A Daveri², D Sali³

Affiliations

¹ Laboratorio di Diagnostica per i beni culturali, piazza Campello 2, 06049 Spoleto, PG, Italy. Electronic address: m.vagnini@diagnosticabeniculturali.it.
² Laboratorio di Diagnostica per i beni culturali, piazza Campello 2, 06049 Spoleto, PG, Italy.
³ Bruker Italia S.r.l., Via. V. Lancetti 43, 20158 Milano, Italy.

PMID: 28099894
DOI: 10.1016/j.saa.2017.01.006

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.

Keywords: Modern artworks; Portable Raman; Reflection infrared spectroscopy; Synthetic organic pigments.