The Biography of Art Objects: Understanding the Material Life Cycle of Artwork through Physical and Chemical Analysis

An artwork is often valued primarily on account of its attribution to a specific creator or location of origin, date or period, and provenance, i.e. not only on the basis of its physical appearance. While an attribution may provide an historical context to the work, establish quality and uniqueness, all these subjectively meaningful parameters are undermined should the work turn out to be a forgery.

When authenticating art, experts eventually decide what is of cultural significance and what is not. Authenticity has concrete repercussions on the market, in the form of its influence on an artworks economic value, and in law, given the liability of experts and sellers for misattributions and the sale of forgeries. For the past two decades the art world has increasingly relied on forensics, i.e. the dedicated chemical and physical investigation of artwork to help answer questions of authenticity. Nowadays, the public museum field, but also the commercial markets such as auction houses and international art fairs involve forensic analysis in their vetting procedure. The expert opinion of the art expert (connoisseurship), the line of ownership of an artwork (the provenance), and materials analysis (forensics) are currently the three most important pillars to establish the authenticity of an artwork.

The materials of artworks offer a unique insight into the making of art, covering the entire lifecycle of an object. Raw materials, their geographic and chronological origin, artist's working techniques, material decay, restoration treatments and re-use and recycling of art objects are all part of the artwork lifecycle. Understanding these aspects is key to understanding the artwork's biography, its provenance and, ultimately, the artwork's authenticity.

The fundamentals of this life cycle will be presented in an introductory lecture and later illustrated throughout this course in case studies. The main focus of the introduction will be on paint and painted objects and the methods used for the investigation of historical paintings (UV, IRR, XRR).

The tremendous methodological progress in non-destructive analysis and chemical and physical imaging diagnostics achieved in the past decades will be illustrated in a series of lectures, which take the variable entry level of the students into account. The lectures will start from the nature of matter (atoms, their cores and electron shells) and radiation, especially X-rays. This basic instruction will be consolidated by peer instruction in the project groups.

The production and detection of X-rays and their interaction with matter will be presented and it will be explained how these are used to acquire computed tomography data. The value this non-invasive 3D technique has to gain insight into an objects lifecycle will be illustrated on pottery/ clay cuneiform tablets, stone (beads/ flints), glass (flasks and beads) and corroded metal (coins/ filigree sphere) objects.

X-ray spectroscopy will be discussed at a basic level and the use of these basic principles in MA-XRF and MA-XRD imaging will be illustrated in studies of pigments of 17th century paintings and archaeological objects from classical antiquity (Etruscan and Greek sites).

The individual techniques will be concluded with an introduction to neutrons and their use in neutron radiography, tomography, gamma spectroscopy and neutron activation analysis with application examples.

This series of lectures will be closed by two events: the students will visit the TU Delft campus and travel in groups to see instruments that are used for the techniques described above. Finally, in a formative test the student groups will be prepared for the final exam.