PAINT PIGMENT TESTING AND CONSERVATION OF ARTISTIC AND HISTORIC WORKS

Preserving art work, especially paintings is an important challenge since the older the painting gets, the possibility of its deterioration increases. NIR reflection spectroscopy can be used to identify paint pigments, detect underlying drawings, identify counterfeits and recognize organic material in the paintings. A spectrophotometer collects the reflection spectra from a painting and by converting reflection measurements to absorption vs. wavelength plots, you can identify paint pigments and also detect forgeries. The underlying painting is also important to reveal the intention of the creator of the art work. The nondestructive NIR method preserves the works of art and reveal all the required information.