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Non-invasive monitoring of oil paintings’ degradation via volatile emissions

Project description

Non-invasive monitoring solution for oil painting conservation

Chemical curing, degradation, and ageing processes are inherent to the oil paints used in many invaluable works of art and heritage, posing challenges for conservation. Issues such as the formation of disfiguring new compounds or the delamination of paint layers complicate preservation efforts. However, progress in understanding these phenomena has been slow. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the PaintWatch project will develop a protocol to study volatile emissions from oil paints using fully non-invasive sampling techniques coupled with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis. The project will focus on emissions from oil paint mock-ups and validate its findings through analysis of historical oil paintings. This research aims to provide a solution for detecting and preserving oil paintings.

Objective

Oil paints are characterised by complex chemical curing, ageing and degradation processes. These can lead to challenging conservation issues such as delamination of the paint or formation of disfiguring new components. The chemistry behind these phenomena is an ongoing research topic. Nevertheless, effectively addressing the conservation issues requires a quick and confident method to assess the degradation status of the painting. For this purpose, innovative emission collection methods are very promising to non-invasively investigate the composition and thereby the conservation state of artworks. Emission analysis can detect the volatile compounds emitted by the painting. The goal of the PaintWatch action will be to correlate volatile emissions from oil paintings with their health state. This will be done by developing a protocol for the study of volatile emissions, based on a fully non-invasive sampling strategy coupled with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis. This method will have no impact on the integrity of the artwork, thus allowing frequent analysis and monitoring of ongoing damage processes. This goal will be achieved by the systematic study of emissions from oil paint mock-ups, naturally and artificially aged, and validation with the results from historical oil paintings. Statistical and multivariate data analysis methods will be used to identify significant trends, and all the results will be published in an online open-access database.
PaintWatch will be the first step in the use of headspace analysis for the conservation of oil paintings. In the future, the developed protocol will have the potential to be further adapted to study the condition of other complex and multi-layered materials, in the cultural heritage field and beyond.

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Topic(s)

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HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01

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Coordinator

UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 217 076,16
Total cost

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No data

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