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Abstract
Using the MOLAB® non-invasive analytical mobile laboratory, we studied a finely illuminated sixteenth-century Persian manuscript at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK, in collaboration with its Department of Manuscripts and Printed Books. Three miniatures belonging to the manuscript, but ascribable to different periods, were analyzed in order to identify similarities and differences in the painting materials and techniques used by Safavid artists over a period of 150 years. The use of multiple analytical techniques indicated a common palette characterizing the three decorative schemes, along with some differences mainly regarding the pigment mixture used to obtain brown hues in the first scheme, as well as the presence of different mixtures in green and dark purple areas in the third scheme.
Notes
1 Access provided by the CHARISMA European project (www.charismaproject.eu).
2 This manuscript was being studied within the context of the cross-disciplinary research project MINIARE (www.miniare.org), which combines scientific and art-historical analysis in view of a comprehensive study of illuminated manuscripts, their makers, patrons, history, and broader context. One of the main outcomes of the project will be a major exhibition on ‘COLOUR: the art and science of illuminated manuscripts’ at the Fitzwilliam Museum (30 July–30 December 2016).
3 The presence of carbon-based blacks was inferred on the basis of near-infrared images acquired with a modified Canon 30D camera equipped with an X-nite 780 long-pass filter, and on the absence of analytical data suggesting any possible alternatives.
4 There is no horse depicted on fol. 202v, but there is one on fol. 203r, which was analyzed and is representative of the third decorative scheme.
5 We owe many thanks to Dr Lucia Burgio, from the Victoria and Albert Museum, for her insightful comments on the difficulties related to the identification of verdigris by Raman spectrometry.
6 Muralha et al. (Citation2012) also identified the use of a different mixture of indigo with yellow ochre to paint vegetation in a sixteenth-century Persian manuscript on which green clothes were instead found to contain emerald green, which is a nineteenth-century pigment. They suggest that this was added to the manuscript in an early attempt at restoration, and it is possible that the treatment may have been undertaken to remedy discoloration or pigment loss in green areas due to the use of verdigris by the sixteenth-century artist.
7 No Raman or mid-FTIR spectra were acquired in these green background area.