Microscale radiocarbon dating of paintings

Hendriks, Laura; Hajdas, Irka; McIntyre, Cameron; Küffner, Markus; Scherrer, Nadim; Ferreira, Ester S. B. (2016). Microscale radiocarbon dating of paintings Applied Physics A, 122(3), p. 167. 10.1007/s00339-016-9593-x

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In this paper, radiocarbon dating of paintings using minimal sample sizes has been investigated, in an effort to address the problem of limited access to sample material in paintings. 14C analyses were conducted on signed and dated paintings from two Swiss artists of the twentieth century. The selected paintings dated from the 1930s and 1960s, provided the opportunity to evaluate the dating accuracy on paintings realized before and after 1950 AD when the 14C bomb peak was created, as a result of the nuclear tests conducted in the 1950/1960s. The work focused on the one hand on minimizing the size of the canvas sample required for accelerator mass spectrometer radiocarbon measurement on the gas ion source of the MICADAS and, on the other hand, on testing the possibility of dating the organic binder of the paint. Following careful characterization of the paint composition by X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy, paints containing no other carbon source than the natural organic binder were identified and dated.

Item Type:	Journal Article (Original Article)
Division/Institute:	Bern Academy of the Arts Bern Academy of the Arts > Institute Materiality in Art and Culture Bern Academy of the Arts > HKB Teaching Bern Academy of the Arts > Institute Materiality in Art and Culture > Material analyses
Name:	Hendriks, Laura; Hajdas, Irka; McIntyre, Cameron; Küffner, Markus; Scherrer, Nadim0000-0002-6576-885X and Ferreira, Ester S. B.
Subjects:	N Fine Arts > ND Painting
ISSN:	1432-0630
Language:	English
Submitter:	Nadim Scherrer
Date Deposited:	25 Feb 2020 14:57
Last Modified:	18 Dec 2020 13:28
Publisher DOI:	10.1007/s00339-016-9593-x
Related URLs:	Publisher
Additional Information:	Notes: journal article Date: 2016
ARBOR DOI:	10.24451/arbor.8053
URI:	https://arbor.bfh.ch/id/eprint/8053