Novel Spectrophotometric Protocol for the Long-Term Characterization of the Hue of Artwork

ABSTRACT

A method for the highly precise, long-term documentation of the color of artwork is described. Gaussian analysis of several ultraviolet–visible absorption spectra allowed the generation of a reduced data set of three to seven Gaussian bands. High-resolution absorption spectra were characterized as 21 or fewer numerical data. The spectral approach enables chemical identification independent from the illumination and concentration of the sample. Applications including documentation and authentication are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Artwork
• conservation
• Gaussian analysis
• long-term documentation
• spectroscopy

Additional information

Funding

Financial support by the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie and the CIPSM cluster Munich Center for Integrated Protein Science is gratefully acknowledged.