Abstract
The Evolution triptych by Piet Mondrian (1911, oil on canvas, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag) presents a case study of a painting that is seriously affected by zinc soap formation, which has resulted in paint delamination and paint loss, particularly in the cadmium yellow paint areas. The paint is extremely fragile, which makes the paintings vulnerable with regard to handling and treatment. This paper focuses on the analytical research of the painting using various state-of-the-art and novel macro- and micro-imaging techniques. Macro X-ray fluorescence scanning (MA-XRF) revealed the presence of cadmium (Cd) and zinc (Zn) in the affected yellow paints. Paint cross sections of both affected and intact paint areas were investigated using light microscopy, scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-ray analysis (SEM-EDX), attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) micro-imaging, and synchrotron photoluminescence (PL) micro-imaging. With the help of these techniques, the cadmium yellow pigment could be identified as a mixture of cadmium sulfide and cadmium oxalate. The presence of zinc white was established in areas where the yellow paint film is degraded, while the intact areas of yellow paint do not contain any zinc white. In samples of the degraded paints, it was demonstrated that high concentrations of zinc soaps have formed, accumulating at interfaces. This has caused local chemical and physical changes of the paint resulting in delamination between paint layers.
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Notes
- 1.
LM and SEM-EDX were done prior to ATR-FTIR and PL micro-imaging. When re-polishing the sample to remove the 3 nm-thick gold coating applied for the SEM-EDX analysis, the surface was slightly modified. This explains why the images obtained with the different analytical techniques cannot be 100% overlayed.
- 2.
During sampling, the thick paint broke into two halves, which were embedded separately. The sample containing the lower part of the layer structure was also analyzed, but the images are not shown here since those layers do not show any sign of degradation and appear stable.
- 3.
In sample X5, which was taken from turquoise blue paint that showed some wrinkling (Table 21.1), zinc soap formation is visible at the interface between an underlying, zinc white-containing green-blue paint layer and a cadmium yellow paint layer. However, possibly due to its thickness, the turquoise blue top paint layer appears to have prevented the paint from developing more serious degradation phenomena and lifting off, at least for the time being. Due to length restrictions of this paper, sample X5 is not further discussed here.
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Acknowledgments
This research is part of the Paint Alterations in Time project (PAinT), which is financially supported by the Science4Arts Programme of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). The synchrotron photoluminescence experiments were carried out at the DISCO beamline, at Synchrotron SOLEIL, with the help of Matthieu Réfrégiers. Macro-XRF scanning was made possible with the support from the Baillet-Latour fund. We would also like to thank Prof. Joris Dik, Delft University of Technology, for making the Bruker M6 scanner available.
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Van Loon, A. et al. (2019). Paint Delamination as a Result of Zinc Soap Formation in an Early Mondrian Painting. In: Casadio, F., et al. Metal Soaps in Art. Cultural Heritage Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90617-1_21
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