Metal Soaps and Visual Changes in a Painting by René Magritte – The Menaced Assassin, 1927

Duffy, Michael; Martins, Ana; Boon, Jaap J.

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-10100-2_13

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Based on a survey initiated by the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in 2009, a subset of O'Keeffe's paintings produced between 1920 and 1950 were identified as having disfiguring micro-protrusions scattered across their surfaces. These protrusions exhibit a strong UV-induced fluorescence response, range in size from 10 to greater than 200 µm, and occasionally appear erupted with a caldera-like shape consistent with soap aggregates found in other modern and early modern paintings (Osmond et al 2005;O'Donoghue et al 2006;Faubel et al 2011;Ferreira et al 2011;Duffy et al 2014;Helwig et al 2014). The protrusion formation process must have started at an early stage in these artworks history: in a 1947 correspondence between O'Keeffe and conservator Caroline Keck (Keck 1947), the artist mentioned that she noticed opaque, granular textures and pinpoint losses appearing in several of her oil paintings created between 1928-1936, some of which today exhibits particularly large protrusions.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 57%

Photometric Stereo by UV-Induced Fluorescence to Detect Protrusions on Georgia O’Keeffe’s Paintings

et al. 2019

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A significant number of oil paintings produced by Georgia O' Keeffe (1887Keeffe ( -1986 show surface protrusions of varying width, up to several hundreds of microns. These protrusions are similar to those described in the art conservation literature as metallic soaps. Since the presence of these protrusions raises questions about the state of conservation and long-term prospects for deterioration of these artworks, a 3D-imaging technique, photometric stereo using ultraviolet illumination, was developed for the long-term monitoring of the surface-shape of the protrusions and the surrounding paint.Because the UV fluorescence response of painting materials is isotropic, errors typically 1 arXiv:1711.08103v1 [cs.GR] 22 Nov 2017 caused by non-Lambertian (anisotropic) specularities when using visible reflected light can be avoided providing a more accurate estimation of shape. As an added benefit, fluorescence provides additional contrast information contributing to materials characterization. The developed methodology aims to detect, characterize, and quantify the distribution of micro-protrusions and their development over the surface of entire artworks. Combined with a set of analytical in-situ techniques, and computational tools, this approach constitutes a novel methodology to investigate the selective distribution of protrusions in correlation with the composition of painting materials at the macroscale. While focused on O'Keeffe's paintings as a case study, we expect the proposed approach to have broader significance by providing a non-invasive protocol to the conservation community to probe topological changes for any relatively flat painted surface of an artwork, and more specifically to monitor the dynamic formation of protrusions, in relation to paint composition and modifications of environmental conditions, loans, exhibitions and storage over the long-term.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 57%

Photometric Stereo by UV-Induced Fluorescence to Detect Protrusions on Georgia O’Keeffe’s Paintings

et al. 2019

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“…Like reported for several other Magritte's oil paintings and observed in MA-XRF scan of the painting side, the present canvas has been primed with two separate ground layers, a first one based on lead white and a second one based on zinc white [2,[13][14][15][16].…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 78%

Discovery and material study of the missing feet part from Magritte’s L’évidence éternelle of 1954

et al. 2019

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One of the two missing canvases from L' évidence éternelle of 1954, the one of the feet, has been discovered beneath a small woman portrait painted in 1958, La toile de Pénélope. Indeed, the underlying woman's feet revealed through the IRR and XRR images leave little doubt about the identity of the hidden composition. All the more so as the canvas dimensions perfectly match with the format ascribed to the feet part in the diagram Magritte made of the 1954 variant of L' évidence éternelle. This paper presents the main results of the material study conducted on La toile de Pénélope by means of non-invasive and complementary imaging and analytical techniques. Furthermore, it proposes a virtual colorized reconstruction of the hidden picture, built on the basis of the XRR and IRR images, the elemental information provided by the MA-XRF analysis, the Raman results and the microscope examination of the painting surface.

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“…Their presence is probably due to the reaction of metals in the lead-and zinc-containing pigments, with free fatty acids from the oil binder. However, their formation may be accelerated by the quality of the ingredient materials as well as the environmental condition [31]. Coarse pigment particles used for the grounds enhanced their porosity, leading to an increased absorption of more oil from the paints.…”

Section: Formation Of Metal Soapsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Technical examination of Liu Kang’s Paris and Shanghai painting supports (1929–1937)

2021

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This article presents an overview of Liu Kang’s (1911–2004) canvas painting supports from his early artistic phases, Paris (1929–1932) and Shanghai (1932–1937). The research was conducted on 55 artworks from the collections of the National Gallery Singapore and Liu family. The technical examination of the paintings was supplemented with archival photographs of the artist at work to elucidate his practice of preparation of painting supports. The analyses conducted with light microscopy, SEM–EDS, and FTIR allowed us to characterise the structure of the canvases and identify the natural fibres and formulation of the grounds. In addition, references to contemporary colourmen catalogues, in relation to certain materials, were made. The obtained results suggest that, in both locations, Liu Kang employed commercially prepared canvases purchased by the roll or by the metre, together with bare strainers or stretchers of standard sizes. In Paris, the artist commonly used linen canvases, while in Shanghai he preferred cotton canvases, with linen used sporadically. The identified grounds from the Paris and Shanghai canvases are white and single-layered, but their formulations vary significantly between the two locations. Hence, grounds composed predominantly of lead white with extenders and drying oil as a binder are considered as exclusive to the Paris phase. However, semi-absorbent or absorbent grounds based on chalk are typical for Shanghai phase. This research contributes to the knowledge of Liu Kang’s painting materials and working practices during the pre-war period in Paris and Shanghai.

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Metal Soaps and Visual Changes in a Painting by René Magritte – The Menaced Assassin, 1927

Cited by 8 publications

References 3 publications

Photometric Stereo by UV-Induced Fluorescence to Detect Protrusions on Georgia O’Keeffe’s Paintings

Photometric Stereo by UV-Induced Fluorescence to Detect Protrusions on Georgia O’Keeffe’s Paintings

Discovery and material study of the missing feet part from Magritte’s L’évidence éternelle of 1954

Technical examination of Liu Kang’s Paris and Shanghai painting supports (1929–1937)

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