Painting characterization by spatially-resolved Energy Dispersive Inelastic X-ray Scattering spectroscopy

J. J. LEANI; J. ROBLEDO; H. J. SÁNCHEZ

Brudge

Conferencia; EXRS 2022; 2022

Cultural heritage artworks, and in particular paintings, are considered real treasures ofhumankind. This is why a proper characterization of a piece not only provides informationregarding the artistic process of its conception but also a valuable tool for improving theconservation processes. Even when obtaining this information is clearly relevant, the fact thatevery analyzed piece is a unique and irreplaceable artwork emphasizes the need of employingnon-destructive techniques for its characterization.This work exploits the possibility of employing the EDIXS [1] technique for characterizationof the chemical environments of elements present in paintings. In addition to the previousbenefits, the motivation of proposing this method for artwork studies is based on the intrinsicfeatures of the technique, such as low absorption in sample, no need of energy scans, userfriendlyapplication, among others.Two different kinds of samples were studied in the Brazilian synchrotron facility. On one hand,two traces based on copper paints (Cu2O and CuO) forming crosses on papers. On the otherhand, a drawing made with a Cu-based paint, completely covered by a layer of a different Cubasedpaint. As it can be seen, the samples are interesting since they present a rich contrast ofcompounds of the same element, in this case copper, being difficult to analyze usingconventional spectroscopic techniques.The results showed that by this novel EDIXS tool, it is possible to produce maps/imagesshowing the different species of the elements of interest, providing atomic environmentinformation at micrometer level in a 2D regime. This methodology can be easily extended forapplications in 3D by a combination with confocal setups, which can be applied to differentfields of cultural heritage research beyond paintings.