‘A Lost Chapter of Ancient Art’: Archaeometric Examinations of Panel Paintings from Roman Egypt
Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
Ancient panel paintings on wood are, with the exception of the mesmerising mummy portraits, extremely rare. However, a small corpus of other types of Romano-Egyptian panel paintings is preserved in collections worldwide. The aim of this study is to explore the technical histories of these rare and intriguing artefacts. We present a comprehensive investigation of three Romano-Egyptian panel paintings from the collections of the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Denmark, including their construction, materials, pigments, binding media, and dating. The panels are examined by various methods of analysis to provide much deeper insights into the materials and techniques used for their production, and to answer questions of chronology and classification. In total, this work offers a more thorough understanding of their function, significance, and original appearance, as well as insights into the art of painting during the Roman period.
| Originalsprog | Engelsk |
|---|---|
| Tidsskrift | Studies in Conservation |
| Antal sider | 39 |
| ISSN | 0039-3630 |
| DOI | |
| Status | E-pub ahead of print - 2024 |
Bibliografisk note
Funding Information:
This study forms part of the interdisciplinary research project ‘Sensing the Ancient World: The Invisible Dimensions of Ancient Art’, which has been generously funded by the Carlsberg Foundation. We are grateful for their support, and also grateful to the Kirsten and Freddy Johansen Foundation, who generously funded the establishment of a new laboratory at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, which has made this study possible. We would also like to take the opportunity to express gratitude to the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, conservator Rebecca Hast, and the technical staff for facilitating the study of the three panels. CB would like to express her gratitude to Marie Svoboda, Caroline Roberts, and Lucile Brunel-Duverger for sharing their immense knowledge on ancient panels paintings, in particular for enlightening discussions on the use of green and blue pigments. JS is grateful for discussions with Kaare Lund Rasmussen about oxalates and with Tom Egelund regarding the assessment of the paintings’ condition with raking light imaging. FTIR and Raman data were collected at the Center for Advanced Bioimaging (CAB) Denmark, University of Copenhagen; we are grateful for access to these facilities. Christophe Drouet, CNRS Senior scientist at the CIRIMAT Institute (University of Toulouse, France) kindly provided the raw FTIR reference data on a natroalunite-like compound. We would also like to thank Jens Soelberg from the Natural History Museum, Denmark for clarifying questions regarding acacia trees. FDG and LØB thank Meaghan Mackie for her help in analysing peptides by nanoLC-MS-MS and for her input and advice on the proteomic data. FDG and LØB would also like to thank Professor Jesper Velgaard Olsen at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research for providing access to LC-MS-MS facilities and resources at the Center for Protein Research. LH acknowledges a Branco Weiss Fellowship as well as support from Ernst Göhner. Karin Wyss Heeb is to be thanked for conducting the cellulose preparation of the wood samples, Lukas Wacker and Irka Hajdas at ETH for analysis and data reduction of the graphite measurements.
Publisher Copyright:
© The International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works 2023.
ID: 372323547