Studying Saraha: Technical and Multi-Analytical Investigation of the Painting Materials and Techniques in an 18th Century Tibetan Thangka

Dyer, Joanne; Derham, Alice; O’Flynn, Daniel; Tamburini, Diego; Heady, Teresa; Ramos, Imma

doi:10.3390/heritage5040148

“…A second hypothesis is formulated on the Virgin's red dress, which appears transparent in IR. This behaviour is typically associated and compatible with the cinnabar pigment [12,16]. Finally, by means of infrared-reflected false-colour (IRRFC), it was also possible to obtain interesting information on the pigments and repainting performed on the panel.…”

Section: Fig 3 Spectra In Reflectance Of Selected Red Points Before A...mentioning

confidence: 74%

Non-invasive diagnostic techniques for studying the Coronation of the Virgin altarpiece by Michele di Matteo

Lombardi,

Comite,

Bergomi

et al. 2023

Proceedings of the 2022 IMEKO TC4 International Conference on Metrology for Archaeology and Cultural Heritage

0

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This paper focuses on the study of the Coronation of the Virgin altarpiece by the Bolognese painter Michele di Matteo (1410-1469).In the field of diagnostics and conservation of cultural heritage, non-invasive techniques are increasingly used to study and understand works in depth. Only through these techniques is it possible to preserve the integrity of the work itself. The aim of this preliminary study is therefore to investigate the pictorial composition of the work in a completely non-invasive and non-destructive manner to obtain useful information on the restoration methods that have been applied to the altarpiece over the years, and, where possible, to evidence the differences before and after cleaning. For this purpose, colourimetric and visible reflectance analysis in addition to multispectral imaging techniques were employed. Further analyses are necessary to better understand the composition of the work. Indeed, portable X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and iperspectral imaging measurements are ongoing, whose application could be useful to obtain information on the elements and compounds that make up the pigments used to paint and decorate the artwork.

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“…Looking at Figure 7, for example, on the head of the Virgin, the presence of repainting that appears dark red, probably belonging to an organic blue, is clearly visible. The robe and background, on the other hand, which appear red in the visible and transparent in the IRR, here appear orange/yellow: typical behaviour of cinnabar pigment [16]. IV.…”

Section: Fig 3 Spectra In Reflectance Of Selected Red Points Before A...mentioning

confidence: 85%

“…A second hypothesis is formulated on the Virgin's red dress, which appears transparent in IR. This behaviour is typically associated and compatible with the cinnabar pigment [12,16]. Finally, by means of infrared-reflected false-colour (IRRFC), it was also possible to obtain interesting information on the pigments and repainting performed on the panel.…”

Section: Fig 3 Spectra In Reflectance Of Selected Red Points Before A...mentioning

confidence: 88%

“…This technique has made it possible to advance certain hypotheses on the use of certain pigments, such as azurite for the Virgin's mantle. In fact, this pigment absorbs infrared radiation and is opaque in reflectography [16]. It is also interesting to note that the mantle in the visible range appears homogenous but not in infrared reflectography; in fact, it is interrupted by some light areas, especially on the head, indicating the possible presence of another blue pigment.…”

Section: Fig 3 Spectra In Reflectance Of Selected Red Points Before A...mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Non-invasive diagnostic techniques for studying the Coronation of the Virgin altarpiece by Michele di Matteo

Lombardi,

Comite,

Bergomi

et al. 2023

Proceedings of the 2022 IMEKO TC4 International Conference on Metrology for Archaeology and Cultural Heritage

0

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper focuses on the study of the Coronation of the Virgin altarpiece by the Bolognese painter Michele di Matteo (1410-1469).In the field of diagnostics and conservation of cultural heritage, non-invasive techniques are increasingly used to study and understand works in depth. Only through these techniques is it possible to preserve the integrity of the work itself. The aim of this preliminary study is therefore to investigate the pictorial composition of the work in a completely non-invasive and non-destructive manner to obtain useful information on the restoration methods that have been applied to the altarpiece over the years, and, where possible, to evidence the differences before and after cleaning. For this purpose, colourimetric and visible reflectance analysis in addition to multispectral imaging techniques were employed. Further analyses are necessary to better understand the composition of the work. Indeed, portable X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and iperspectral imaging measurements are ongoing, whose application could be useful to obtain information on the elements and compounds that make up the pigments used to paint and decorate the artwork.

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“…Advanced edge detection techniques, such as the Cross Dense Residual architecture (CDR), have also enabled the creation of highly realistic and detailed Thangka edge line drawings [5]. Spectral imaging methods, which offer non-invasive analyses, have provided valuable insights into the layers, visual characteristics, spatial details, and chemical composition of Thangka paintings, minimizing the need for invasive measurements [6]. The analysis of mineral pigments used in Thangka paintings has been instrumental to understanding their origin, production dates, and the evolution of their painting traditions [7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thangka Hyperspectral Image Super-Resolution Based on a Spatial–Spectral Integration Network

Wang

¹

,

Fan

²

2023

Remote Sensing

2

0

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Thangka refers to a form of Tibetan Buddhist painting on a fabric, scroll, or Thangka, often depicting deities, scenes, or mandalas. Deep-learning-based super-resolution techniques have been applied to improve the spatial resolution of hyperspectral images (HSIs), especially for the preservation and analysis of Thangka cultural heritage. However, existing CNN-based methods encounter difficulties in effectively preserving spatial information, due to challenges such as registration errors and spectral variability. To overcome these limitations, we present a novel cross-sensor super-resolution (SR) framework that utilizes high-resolution RGBs (HR-RGBs) to enhance the spectral features in low-resolution hyperspectral images (LR-HSIs). Our approach utilizes spatial–spectral integration (SSI) blocks and spatial–spectral restoration (SSR) blocks to effectively integrate and reconstruct spatial and spectral features. Furthermore, we introduce a frequency multi-head self-attention (F-MSA) mechanism that treats high-, medium-, and low-frequency features as tokens, enabling self-attention computations across the frequency dimension. We evaluate our method on a custom dataset of ancient Thangka paintings and demonstrate its effectiveness in enhancing the spectral resolution in high-resolution hyperspectral images (HR-HSIs), while preserving the spatial characteristics of Thangka artwork with minimal information loss.

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Studying Saraha: Technical and Multi-Analytical Investigation of the Painting Materials and Techniques in an 18th Century Tibetan Thangka

Cited by 5 publications

References 28 publications

Non-invasive diagnostic techniques for studying the Coronation of the Virgin altarpiece by Michele di Matteo

Non-invasive diagnostic techniques for studying the Coronation of the Virgin altarpiece by Michele di Matteo

Non-invasive diagnostic techniques for studying the Coronation of the Virgin altarpiece by Michele di Matteo

Thangka Hyperspectral Image Super-Resolution Based on a Spatial–Spectral Integration Network

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