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The organic materials in the Five Northern Provinces’ Assembly Hall: disclosing the painting technique of the Qing dynasty painters in civil buildings

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Abstract

The beiwusheng huiguan (‘Meeting hall of the Five Northern Dynasties’) is a building complex from the Qing dynasty (1636–1912 ad) located in Wafangdian, near Ziyang, in the south of the Chinese Province of Shaanxi. Two of the preserved halls are richly decorated with wall paintings dated probably in 1848 ad and representing scenes of the ‘Romance of the Three Kingdoms’ and Confucian moral tales. They are a rare example of well-preserved mural paintings of high artistic value inside civil buildings. The aims of this paper are the chemical characterization and localization of organic materials used as binders and colorants in the wall paintings. A multi-analytical approach, consisting in the combined use of gas chromatographic–mass spectrometric techniques (GC/MS and Py-GC/MS) and high-pressure liquid chromatography with diode array detector (HPLC–DAD), was chosen for these purposes. Proteinaceous materials (animal glue and egg), saccharide material (fruit tree gum) and a siccative oil were identified in different paint layers supplying invaluable information about the painting technique used. Moreover, the analyses of organic dyes allowed identifying indigo and gallic acid in more than one sample adding fundamental information about Chinese artists’ techniques in mural paintings, missing from the previous studies. To shed light on the gilding technique, the distribution of the painting materials was achieved by means of synchrotron radiation Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (SR micro-FTIR) and X-ray fluorescence (SR micro-XRF). The results obtained from the multi-analytical approach enabled us to determine the organic materials both binders and organic colorants used by Chinese artisans, highlighting the high technical level achieved in nineteenth century. The binding media and the organic colorants identified, as well as their distribution, allowed the discussion on the painting technique used by the artists of the Qing dynasty giving information for the first time about the decoration of Chinese civil buildings.

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Acknowledgments

The European Synchrotron Radiation Facility is thanked for providing beamtime (in-house research), assistance and economical support. This work was performed in the framework of the project PRIN 2010-11 funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (Project No. 2010329WPF_001). Authors would like to thank Mr. Bai Chongbin, Mr. Bai Ke and Mr. Liu Dongbo from the Research Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage of Shaanxi Province for the sampling, providing photographs and information on the building and traditional painting technique. Hu Kejia, from Qingdao Municipal Museum, and Miriam Schanz, from the Technische Universität München, are thanked for sharing the information on their analyses carried out on beiwusheng huiguan samples and the discussion of the results achieved in China and Europe.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Chimica e Chimica Industriale, Università di Pisa, 13, Via Giuseppe Moruzzi, 56124, Pisa, Italy

    A. Lluveras-Tenorio, I. Bonaduce, F. Sabatini, I. Degano & M. P. Colombini

  2. Technische Universität München, Chair of Restoration, Oettingenstraße 15, 80538, Munich, Germany

    C. Blaensdorf

  3. European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), 71, Av. Des Martyrs, 38000, Grenoble, France

    E. Pouyet & M. Cotte

  4. LAMS (Laboratoire d’Archéologie Moléculaire et Structurale) UMR-8220, 4, Place Jussieu, 75005, Paris, France

    M. Cotte

  5. Shaanxi Provincial Research Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage, 35, Keji Lu, Xi’an, 710075, China

    L. Ma

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  1. A. Lluveras-Tenorio
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  2. I. Bonaduce
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  3. F. Sabatini
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  4. I. Degano
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  5. C. Blaensdorf
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  6. E. Pouyet
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  7. M. Cotte
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  8. L. Ma
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  9. M. P. Colombini
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to A. Lluveras-Tenorio.

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Lluveras-Tenorio, A., Bonaduce, I., Sabatini, F. et al. The organic materials in the Five Northern Provinces’ Assembly Hall: disclosing the painting technique of the Qing dynasty painters in civil buildings. Appl. Phys. A 121, 879–889 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-015-9362-2

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