Examination, conservation and restoration of painted art

To conserve or restore painted artwork, it is necessary to appreciate the nature of the basic materials used in its creation, to be able to identify the pigments and the application media that were originally – or have subsequently been – applied and to understand the nature of gradual chemical and physical degradation that occurs within the various components of the system. With information thus gained, one can determine how best a painting may be cleaned, restored and ultimately be better preserved. This review covers the range of analytical techniques (mostly spectrographic), which have often been specifically developed to aid the identification of the wide range of inorganic colours and organic binders (or their degradation products) that may be present in each paint layer of an old masterpiece. Although an art gallery or museum strives to conserve the artefacts it displays, over time there will be varying degrees of mechanical or chemical damage. Cleaning (and, more controversially, restoration work) therefore becomes necessary and the much-improved methods now available for achieving this without associated adverse effects are reviewed.