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Title
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Visualizing the 17th century underpainting in Portrait of an Old Man by Rembrandt van Rijn using synchrotron-based scanning macro-XRF
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Author
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Abstract
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| In 17th century Old Master Paintings, the underpainting generally refers to the first sketch of a composition. The underpainting is applied to a prepared ground using a monochrome, brown oil paint to roughly indicate light, shade and contours. So far, methods to visualize the underpainting-other than in localized cross-sections-have been very limited. Neither infrared reflectography nor neutron induced autoradiography have proven to be practical, adequate visualization tools. Thus, although of fundamental interest in the understanding of a painting's genesis, the underpainting has virtually escaped all imaging efforts. In this contribution we will show that 17th century underpainting may consist of a highly heterogeneous mixture of pigments, including copper pigments. We suggest that this brown pigment mixture is actually the recycled left-over of a palette scraping. With copper as the heaviest exclusive elemental component, we will hence show in a case study on a Portrait of an Old Man attributed to Rembrandt van Rijn how scanning macro-XRF can be used to efficiently visualize the underpainting below the surface painting and how this information can contribute to the discussion of the painting's authenticity. |
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Language
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English
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Source (journal)
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Applied physics A : materials science & processing. - Heidelberg, 1995, currens
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Publication
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Heidelberg
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Springer
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2013
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ISSN
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0947-8396
[print]
1432-0630
[online]
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DOI
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10.1007/S00339-012-7490-5
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Volume/pages
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111
:1
(2013)
, p. 157-164
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ISI
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000316075700019
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Full text (Publisher's DOI)
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Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
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