MULTITECHNIQUE APPROACH FOR THE NON-INVASIVE STUDY OF THE VITTORE GRUBICY COLLECTION

Beskrivelse

Objects of this study are six paintings by Vittore Grubicy De Dragon. He was an art mediator and had many contacts with artists belonging to the Divisionism movement which he himself jointed as painter. His activity has played a crucial role for both contemporary painters of that time and later Futurists, infact he introduced in Italy many pigments then used by Futurist painters. His artistic production dates back to the period from 1887 to 1994. Within the Italian project FUTURAHMA, the Livorno Foundation gave the possibility to study its own Grubicy collection through non invasive portable techniques directly in situ. The non-invasive approach consisted in a fi rst XRF investigation to obtain the atomic information of materials present on the paintings; then the medium and near FT-IR spectroscopies have been applied completing the molecular identifi cation of pigments, binders, original varnishes, possible degradation products. Also X-ray diffraction (XRD) was utilized for the identifi cation of some crystalline pigments. Measurements of absorption and emission in the UV-vis range were performed to detect the presence of organic fl uorescing dyes. The exploration of the optical properties in the UV and visible ranges allowed us to distinguish among the various new modern pigments based on semiconductor
compounds (ZnO, lithopone, yellow, orange and red Cd-based). More in detail, it was possible to discriminate different yellow pigments used, even on the same painting (lead chromate and strontium chromate, lead antimoniate and organic yellow), various hues of blue like Thénard and cerulean blue, ultramarine and Prussian blue. The characterization of the nature of the original varnishes permitted to chronologically attribute the different documented and undocumented interventions made by the artist himself during the years. A particular attention was paid to the investigation of the ground layers which were demonstrated to change during Grubicy’s painter activity.

Co-author with: Gabrieli, Francesca (1); Cartechini, Laura (1); Daveri, Alessia (2); Buti, David (1); Romani, Aldo (3); Marchesi, Claudia (4); Buzzegoli, Ezio (4); Rosi, Francesca (1). (1)CNR-ISTM (2) Laboratorio di Diagnostica per i Beni Culturali di Spoleto (3) Chemistry Department, University of Perugia (4) Department of Civilizations and forms of Knowledge, University of Pisa, Italy

Periode	12 jun. 2014
Begivenhedstype	Konference
Placering	Madrid, Spanien