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rembrandt’s night watchmanThe Dutch master’s largest surviving painting, painted in 1642, is particularly notable for its exquisite use of light and shadow. New X-ray image analysis of the masterpiece has revealed an unexpected layer of lead, probably applied as a protective measure during the canvas’s preparation, officials said. new paper Published in Science Advances magazine. This work was part of an ongoing project at the Rijksmuseum. night watch operationthe largest interdisciplinary research and conservation project dedicated to the long-term preservation of Rembrandt’s famous paintings.
The famous scene depicted in night watchman—This is what it’s officially called. District 2 Militia Company under the command of Captain Frans Vanninck Koch–It wasn’t supposed to happen at night. Rather, this dark appearance is the result of dirt and varnish accumulating over four centuries as the painting underwent various types of chemical and mechanical changes.
For example, in 1715, night watchman It was moved to Amsterdam City Hall (now the Royal Palace on Dam Square). Since it was too large for the new location, the painting was cropped on all four sides, but no cropped parts were found (although in 2021, we used AI to recreate the entire original paint job). Operation Nightwatch aims to employ a variety of imaging and analysis techniques to better understand the materials Rembrandt used to create his masterpieces and how those materials have changed over time. is.
As previously reported, past analyzes of Rembrandt’s paintings include lead white, multiple ochres, bone black, vermillion, madder lake, azurite, ultramarine, yellow lake, lead-tin yellow, etc. Many of the pigments used by the masters in their works have been identified. . Artists rarely used pure blue or green pigments. Belshazzar’s Feast A notable exception. ( rembrandt database is the perfect resource for comprehensively documenting various research reports. )
Earlier this year, Operation Night Watch researchers I found a rare trace A compound called lead formate in the picture. They scanned about half a square meter of the painting’s surface using powder X-ray diffraction mapping (among other methods) and analyzed small pieces of the painting using a synchrotron micro-X-ray probe. This revealed the presence of lead formate. Remarkable in itself, the research team also identified those formates in areas devoid of lead pigment, white, and yellow. Lead format can disappear fairly quickly, which may explain why lead format has not been detected in the Dutch master’s paintings until now. But if that’s the case, why didn’t lead formate disappear in 1999? night watchman?And where did it come from in the first place??
In hopes of answering these questions, the research team created a model of a “cooked oil” from a 17th-century recipe that involved mixing linseed oil and lead oxide, heating them, and adding boiling water to the reaction mixture. . They analyzed these model oils using synchrotron radiation. This result confirmed the hypothesis that the oil used in the bright areas of the painting was processed in an alkaline lead dryer.fact night watchman It was repainted with oil-based varnish in the 18th century, which may have provided a new source of formic acid, as different areas of the painting rich in lead formate may have formed at different times in the history of painting. , things are getting complicated.
This latest paper focuses on the preparation layers applied to the canvas and sheds more light on the painting. It is known that Rembrandt used a ground of quartz clay. night watchman—perhaps because the painting’s enormous size “motivated him to look for substitutes for substrata that were cheaper, less heavy, and more flexible” than the red clay, white lead, and bronze ore he was familiar with. not. The authors suggested its use in earlier paintings.
Frederick Broers
According to the authors, this is the first time that 3D X-ray imaging techniques, called X-ray fluorescence and X-rays, have been used. letterpress printing Nanotomography applied to an embedded paint chip consisting only of a quartz clay ground. The authors argue that microscale analysis of historical paintings typically relies on 2D imaging techniques (e.g., optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, synchrotron radiation spectroscopy), and the size of pigment particles beneath the visible surface. ,claims that only partial information about the shape ,distribution can be obtained. .
The 3D method captures details by comparison and reveals the presence of an unknown (and unexpected) lead-bearing layer just below the underlying layer. The authors suggest that this may be due to the use of lead compounds added to the oil used in canvas preparation as a drying additive, perhaps to protect the painting from the negative effects of moisture. doing. (Adhesive sizing is typically used before applying the base layer.)
night watchman It was originally hung in the “saloon” of the Musketeer Shooting Range in Amsterdam, facing a window. The authors point out that lead dissolved in oil has been used since the Middle Ages to protect stone, wood, and metal from moisture, and one modern source suggests that it was used to protect canvas from peeling even after many years. It states that lead-rich oil was used instead of common adhesives to prevent the effects of exposure to humid environments. And that newly discovered lead layer may be responsible for unusual lead protrusions in the following areas: night watchman The paint does not contain other lead-containing compounds. Lead may have migrated from the underlying lead oil preparation layer to the painting’s base layer.
DOI: Science Advances, 2023. 10.1126/sciadv.adj9394 (About DOI).
