Non-invasive study of natural dyes on historical textiles from the collection of Michelangelo Guggenheim

L de Ferri; R Tripodi; A Martignon; E S Ferrari; A C Lagrutta-Diaz; D Vallotto; G Pojana

doi:10.1016/j.saa.2018.06.026

Non-invasive study of natural dyes on historical textiles from the collection of Michelangelo Guggenheim

Spectrochim Acta A Mol Biomol Spectrosc. 2018 Nov 5:204:548-567. doi: 10.1016/j.saa.2018.06.026. Epub 2018 Jun 15.

Authors

L de Ferri¹, R Tripodi², A Martignon¹, E S Ferrari¹, A C Lagrutta-Diaz¹, D Vallotto¹, G Pojana³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, University Ca' Foscari of Venice, Dorsoduro 3484/d, I-30123 Venice, Italy.
² Department of Management, University Ca' Foscari of Venice, San Giobbe, Cannaregio 873, Venice I-30121, Italy.
³ Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, University Ca' Foscari of Venice, Dorsoduro 3484/d, I-30123 Venice, Italy. Electronic address: jp@unive.it.

PMID: 29975917
DOI: 10.1016/j.saa.2018.06.026

Abstract

A selection of historical textile fragments from the Venetian art dealer Moisè Michelangelo Guggenheim collection, ranging from XV to XVIII century, has been investigated by means of non-invasive techniques in order to reveal the coloring materials. Imaging was preliminarily used to visually investigate the selected artwork fragments in order to investigate their structure and conservation conditions; Fiber Optics Reflectance Spectroscopy (FORS) allowed recognizing the main natural dyestuffs, such as indigotin and anthraquinones-based compounds, except the yellow ones, difficultly identifiable when using this non-invasive technique. Collected spectroscopic data have been also elaborated by using a clustering algorithm that permitted to group collected spectra on the basis of similar properties and evidencing their inflection point wavelength as the most influencing feature.

Keywords: Clustering; Historical fabrics; Natural dyes; Reflectance spectroscopy; Silk.