Hu

 Éva Galambos

Short bio

Polychrome wood sculpture conservator

Éva Galambos is an associate professor and the head of the Microscopy Laboratory at the Conservation Department of the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in Budapest, where she teaches the history of pigments and particle identification by polarized light microscopy.

Also working for the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, she specializes in the conservation of painted Egyptian wooden objects and polychrome gothic sculptures. As an experienced researcher of painted layers, she focuses on artistic practices, painting techniques, materials and colour changing of pigments.

Abstract

Chasing elusive pigments with microscope: discovering enigmatic colours

Pigments tend to be elusive particles whose microscopic analysis reveals a lot about their history and nature. This presentation focuses on yellow or yellowish pigments which were discovered mainly by microscope.

All of the five categories of the discussed samples come from Hungarian museums, collections, monuments or archaeological sites to demonstrate the significant role of microscopic examinations among other analytical techniques.

The first type under examination was arsenic sulfides which are found in a great variety of painted layers. However, the natural orpiment often loses its original colour, fades or disappears and as a result, it was considered a rare pigment simply because it was hiding from the researchers’ eyes. For example, it was always present but not seen in the Egyptian Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest on the painted objects from the Ptolemaic cemetery of Gamhud.

Another easily altered arsenic sulfide pigment, the reddish realgar can also cause intrigue with its colour-changing in the flesh tone of a very special Egyptian wood sculpture from the New Kingdom.

The most interesting arsenic sulfide type under the microscope is the “ball-shaped” artificial orpiment, which was discovered on a Franz Anton Maulbertsch painting from Győr.

Among the Egyptian painted layers, another special yellow pigment was discovered, the jarosite, which is an iron-containing yellow pigment. It was found on many objects from antiquity to the Middle Ages thanks to the nice particles that are easily detectable with a microscope.

Lastly, I will discuss an example from the also iron-containing yellow parts of the newly restored wall paintings of Ják (Hungary), on which a blue vivianite transformation was analytically confirmed.

These examples emphasize the importance of microscopic examinations, from sample taking with a head loupe through the preparation of the samples under a stereo to the analysis of the pigment particles or painted layers on cross-section in higher magnification with polarized light microscopes.

 

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