Micro-spectroscopic study of late 19th-early 20th century tube paints.

Many issues in the conservation of paintings from the early modern period are still unresolved due to lack of information on paints from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in particular their production, formulations, and later degradation processes. The inconsistency of the names that paint manufacturers chose for their products furthermore compounds the challenges faced by conservators and chemists wishing to study them. This paper addresses a number of these issues through investigations of commercial tube oil paints from a paint box owned by the Norwegian painter Harriet Backer (1845-1932). Samples were analyzed using a multi-instrumental approach. Micro-attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and micro-Raman spectroscopy - supported by micro-X-ray powder diffraction - allowed the identification of binders, pigments, and extenders. The data highlight the use of materials that were new at the time and not reported in the manufacturer's catalog. Furthermore, zinc stearate has been detected for the first time. Its detection and the absence of any zinc-based pigments confirms that zinc stearate was already used as dispersing agent in paint formulations at that time.

Archaeometric studies on rock art at four sites in the northeastern Great Basin of North America.

Rock art originated some 46,000 years ago and can provide unique insights into the minds of our human ancestors. However, dating of these ancient images, especially of petroglyphs, remains a challenge. In this study, we explore the potential of deriving age estimates from measurements of the areal densities of manganese (DMn) and iron (DFe) in the rock varnish on petroglyphs, based on the concept that the amount of varnish that has regrown on a petroglyph since its creation, relative to the surrounding intact varnish, is a measure of its age. We measured DMn and DFe by portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) on dated Late Pleistocene and Holocene rock surfaces, from which we derived accumulation rates of Mn and Fe in the rock varnish. The observed rates were comparable to our previous findings on basalt surfaces in North America. We derived age estimates for the rock art at four sites in the northern Great Basin region of North America based on DMn measurements on the petroglyphs and intact varnish. They suggest that rock art creation in this region began around the Pleistocene/Holocene transition and continued into the Historic Period, encompassing a wide range of styles and motifs. Evidence of reworking of the rock art at various times by Indigenous people speaks of the continued agency of these images through the millennia. Our results are in good agreement with chronologies based on archeological and other archaeometric techniques. While our method remains subject to significant uncertainty with regard to the absolute ages of individual images, it provides the unique opportunity to obtain age estimates for large ensembles of images without the need for destructive sampling.

Evolución de la información relacionada con la alimentación y la nutrición. Retos de adaptación para y por el consumidor / Evolution of information about feeding and nutrition. Challenges for and by the consumer

En la sociedad actual, con toda la información que tenemos a nuestro alcance -nunca hemos tenido acceso a tanta información ni a tantas vías y formas de comunicación como ahora-, damos por hecho qué alimentos y bebidas son buenos para nuestra salud gracias a la información transmitida durante siglos y obtenida por datos observacionales y, más recientemente, también por datos analíticos basados en la investigación científico-técnica, aunque en algunos casos sigan emitiéndose opiniones basadas más en datos observacionales que en analíticos, cuando los últimos en muchas ocasiones corrigen a los primeros. Toda esta información, incluso internacional, también debemos ubicarla en nuestro entorno y en nuestras costumbres, y todo ello nos proveerá de un mejor conocimiento sobre la influencia de la nutrición y de los hábitos alimentarios y el estilo de vida en la salud, incluyendo cada vez más el modelo comportamental como un eje básico en la nutrición y en la dietética. Pero ¿qué premisas podemos utilizar para analizar? ¿Cómo era esa transmisión de la información y el conocimiento en la alimentación y los hábitos alimentarios en épocas anteriores? ¿A partir de qué vías y formas se transmitía la información sobre las características de los alimentos de unos ciudadanos a otros: intuición o todo basado en experiencias y datos observacionales? ¿Hubo cambios sustanciales en periodos anteriores a esta gran distribución de alimentos y bebidas que existe hoy en día...?

In today's society has a much disposal information, -the people have never had access to as much information or as many ways and means of communication as we do now-, we take for granted what foods and drinks are good for our health thanks to the transmission of information over the centuries, which has been through observational data and, more recently, also through analytical data based on scientific-technical research, although in some cases opinions are still issued based on observational rather than analytical data, when the latter many times they correct the first ones. We must also locate in our environment and our customs and all this will provide us with a better knowledge about the influence of nutrition and eating habits and lifestyle in health, including more and more the behavioral model as a basic axis for nutrition and dietetic sciences. What premises can we use to analyze: how was this transmission of information and knowledge in food and eating habits in previous times? From what ways and forms was transmitted information about the characteristics of food some citizens to others? intuition or everything based on experiences and observational data? were there substantial changes in periods prior to this large distribution of food and beverages that exists today...?

Arthur Rimbaud: "The Man with Wind Soles" - Riders' Osteosarcoma with Postamputation Stump Pain.

The famous poet Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) stopped writing poetry at 21 years and subsequently had a rather adventurous life mainly in the Arabic peninsula and Ethiopia. He died at 37 years, only a few months after the amputation of his right lower limb due to a developing tumor in the knee, which probably was an osteosarcoma in the lower third of the femur. His letters to his sister Isabelle suggest that he suffered from severe stump pain rather than phantom limb, but since he lived only shortly after surgery (he developed extensive carcinomatosis), one does not know whether a full phantom would have developed and how this would have affected his subsequent life.

La influencia de las cataratas en la obra pictórica de Mary Cassatt / The influence of cataracts in the paintings of Mary Cassatt

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Portable Raman, DRIFTS, and XRF Analysis to Diagnose the Conservation State of Two Wall Painting Panels from Pompeii Deposited in the Naples National Archaeological Museum (Italy).

This work presents a methodology that combines spectroscopic speciation, performed through portable Raman spectroscopy, diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy (DRIFTS), and energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (ED-XRF) working in situ, and thermodynamic speciation to diagnose the environmental impacts, induced by past and current events, on two wall painting panels (Nos. 9103 and 9255) extracted more than 150 years ago from the walls of a Pompeian house (Marcus Lucretius House, Regio IX, Insula 3, House 5/24) and deposited in the Naples National Archaeological Museum (MANN). The results show a severe chemical attack of the acid gases that can be explained only by the action of H2S during and just after the eruption of the Vesuvius volcano, that expelled a high concentration of sulfur gases. This fact can be considered as the most important process impacting the wall painting panels deposited in the museum, while the rain-wash processes and the colonization of microorganisms have not been observed in contrast to the impacts shown by the wall paintings left outside in the archaeological site of Pompeii. Moreover, the systematic presence of lead traces and strontium in both wall paintings suggests their presence as impurities of the calcite mortars (intonacco) or calcite binder of these particular fresco Pompeian murals.

Influence of pigments and protein aging on protein identification in historically representative casein-based paints using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.

A systematic study on the influence of pigments and sample aging on casein identification was performed on 30 reconstructed paints. The protein in all the paints was extracted into solution for analysis. The amount of protein that can be retrieved for solution-based analysis in each of the reconstructed paints was studied with a well-developed NanoOrange method before and after artificial aging. The results showed that in the paints with calcium phosphate (in bone black) and copper carbonate, hydroxide, or acetate (in verdigris and azurite), the amount of protein that can be retrieved for liquid-phase analysis is much smaller than the other paints, indicating that the protein degradation was accelerated significantly in those paints. Carbon (in vine black), calcium carbonate (in natural chalk), and calcium sulfate (terra alba gypsum and ground alabaster) did not affect much the amount of protein that can be retrieved in the paints compared to non-pigmented binder, meaning that the protein degradation rate was not affected much by those pigments. Artificial aging was observed to decrease the amount of retrievable protein in all the reconstructed paints that were studied. The enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) method was applied to the 28 reconstructed paints (except two verdigris paints) to assess the protein identification. The ELISA responses from the different paints were compared at fixed protein concentrations. Natural chalk, bone black, raw sienna, stack lead white, and cochineal red-violet lake had the lowest ELISA signal in this study, which indicated that the binding sites (epitopes) on the target protein in these paints are likely to deteriorate more than those in the other paints. Artificial aging did not influence the ELISA response as much as the pigments when the protein concentration was kept the same for the paints that were studied.

A Milk and Ochre Paint Mixture Used 49,000 Years Ago at Sibudu, South Africa.

Gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, proteomic and scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM/EDS) analyses of residue on a stone flake from a 49,000 year-old layer of Sibudu (South Africa) indicate a mixture of ochre and casein from milk, likely obtained by killing a lactating wild bovid. Ochre powder production and use are documented in Middle Stone Age South African sites but until now there has been no evidence of the use of milk as a binder. Our analyses show that this ochre-based mixture was neither a hafting adhesive nor a residue left after treating animal skins, but a liquid mixture consisting of a powdered pigment mixed with milk; in other words, a paint medium that could have been applied to a surface or to human skin. The significance of our finds also lies in the fact that it establishes the antiquity of the use of milk as a binder well before the introduction of domestic cattle in South Africa in the first millennium AD.

Portuguese tin-glazed earthenware from the 17th century. Part 2: A spectroscopic characterization of pigments, glazes and pastes of the three main production centers.

Sherds representative of the three Portuguese faience production centers of the 17th century - Lisbon, Coimbra and Vila Nova were studied with the use of mostly non-invasive spectroscopies, namely: ground state diffuse reflectance absorption (GSDR), micro-Raman, Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) and proton induced X-ray (PIXE) or X-ray fluorescence emission (XRF). X-ray diffraction (XRD) experiments were also performed. The obtained results evidence a clear similarity in the pastes of the pottery produced Vila Nova and some of the ceramic pastes from Lisbon, in accordance with documental sources that described the use of Lisbon clays by Vila Nova potters, at least since mid 17th century. Quartz and Gehlenite are the main components of the Lisbon's pastes, but differences between the ceramic pastes were detected pointing out to the use of several clay sources. The spectroscopic trend exhibited Coimbra's pottery is remarkably different, Quartz and Diopside being the major components of these pastes, enabling one to well define a pattern for these ceramic bodies. The blue pigment from the Lisbon samples is a cobalt oxide that exists in the silicate glassy matrix, which enables the formation of detectable cobalt silicate microcrystals in most productions of the second half of the 17th century. No micro-Raman cobalt blue signature could be detected in the Vila Nova and Coimbra blue glazes. This is in accordance with the lower kiln temperatures in these two production centers and with Co(2+) ions dispersed in the silicate matrix. In all cases the white glaze is obtained with the use of tin oxide. Hausmannite was detected as the manganese oxide mineral used to produce the purple glaze (wine color "vinoso") in Lisbon.

On Corporate Accountability: Lead, Asbestos, and Fossil Fuel Lawsuits.

This paper examines the use of lawsuits against three industries that were eventually found to be selling products damaging to human heath and the environment: lead paint, asbestos, and fossil fuels. These industries are similar in that some companies tried to hide or distort information showing their products were harmful. Common law claims were eventually filed to hold the corporations accountable and compensate the injured. This paper considers the important role the lawsuits played in helping establish some accountability for the industries while also noting the limitations of the lawsuits. It will be argued that the lawsuits helped create pressure for government regulation of the industries' products but were less successful at securing compensation for the injured. Thus, the common law claims strengthened and supported administrative regulation and the adoption of industry alternatives more than they provided a means of legal redress.

Alteración anatómica orbitaria en Retrato de familia. Adriaen Thomasz Key. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid / Orbital anatomical changes in Retrato de familia. Adriaen Thomasz Key. El Prado National Museum, Madrid

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Santa Lucía en el Museo Nacional del Prado (VI). Retablo de la Virgen del Maestro de Torralba. Donación Várez Fisa / Saint Lucy in El Prado Museum (VI). Retablo de la Virgen by the maestro of Torralba. Várez Fisa donation

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Temperature-related degradation and colour changes of historic paintings containing vivianite.

Temperature-related degradation of pure synthetic as well as partly oxidised natural vivianite has been studied by high-temperature X-ray diffraction (HT-XRD) covering the whole extent of the temperature-related stability of its structure. While temperatures around 70°C are already damaging to vivianite, exposition to 160°C results in complete amorphisation of both the vivianite and its oxidation products. As indicated by Mössbauer spectroscopy, temperature-induced oxidation of vivianite starts at 90°C. To study the occurring structural as well as accompanying colour changes in more detail, model vivianite paint layer samples with different historic binders were prepared and subjected to increased temperatures. Exposition to 80°C caused pronounced colour changes of all the samples: ground natural blue vivianite became grey--a colour change which has been described in actual works of art. Regarding the binders, the oil seemed to facilitate the transfer of heat to vivianite's grains. To simulate conditions of conservation treatment under which the painting is exposed to increased temperatures, oil-on-canvas mock-ups with vivianite were prepared and relined in a traditional way using iron. The treatment affected preferentially larger grains of vivianite; the micro-samples documented their change to grey, and their Raman spectra showed the change from vivianite to metavivianite.

El Tránsito de la Virgen. Maestro de la Sisla. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid / The Death of the Virgin. Master of the Sisla. Prado Museum, Madrid

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Enfermedad ocular en los santos de la predela del Retablo de la vida de la Virgen y san Francisco de Nicolás Francés. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid / Ocular pathology in the saints of the predella of the Retablo de la vida de la Virgen y san Francisco by Nicolás Francés. El Prado National Museum, Madrid

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Raman spectroscopic study of "The Malatesta": a Renaissance painting?

Raman spectroscopic analysis of the pigments on an Italian painting described as a "Full Length Portrait of a Gentleman", known also as the "Malatesta", and attributed to the Renaissance period has established that these are consistent with the historical research provenance undertaken earlier. Evidence is found for the early 19th Century addition of chrome yellow to highlighted yellow ochre areas in comparison with a similar painting executed in 1801 by Sir Thomas Lawrence of John Kemble in the role of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. The Raman data are novel in that no analytical studies have previously been made on this painting and reinforces the procedure whereby scientific analyses are accompanied by parallel historical research.

Pigment characterization of important golden age panel paintings of the 17th century.

Samples were obtained from two world-famous 17th century panel paintings of the Gdansk school of panting: 'Seven Acts of Charity' (1607, in St. Mary's Church in Gdansk, Poland) by Anton Möller and 'Angelic Concert' (1611, in Diocesan Museum in Pelplin, Poland) by Hermann Han. Micro-Raman spectroscopy (MRS), optical microscopy (OM), and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy studies of the samples were performed to characterize the pigments present in the individual painting layers (a rich palette of white, black, blue, red, and yellow pigments) and the pictorial techniques used by the artists.