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Advanced photonic techniques for the analysis of the composite French folding fan

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Abstract

Folding fans are complex artifacts that include a variety of materials that have been processed and assembled to produce very small supports and decorations. Unfortunately, due to their fragility, as well as the lack of suitable non-invasive and non-destructive analytical techniques, the constituent materials and stratigraphies of historic folding fans have been rarely studied so far. This work aimed to develop and demonstrate a suitable analytical methodology for characterizing a French fan and to establish manufacturing techniques employed in its production. To this goal, advanced non-destructive and micro-destructive photonic techniques were employed to gather compositional and processing information with a non-invasive approach. This artifact provided the opportunity to evaluate the potential of different techniques: Portable Raman spectroscopy (with excitation at 785 nm) was used for identifying the pigments of the painted leaves and the gemstones; particle-induced X-ray emission (PIXE) and Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS) were employed to quantify metal alloy compositions and stratigraphy of the decorations; portable laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) allowed the measurement of elemental depth profiles of metal decorations which were congruent with those provided by PIXE. Finally, additional stratigraphic information on metal decorations, in terms of gold distribution and state of conservation, was achieved through selective laser ablation.

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Data Availability Statement

This manuscript has associated data in a data repository. [Authors’ comment: The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.]

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Acknowledgements

Authors would like to thank Francesco Persico ancient fans enthusiast and refined collector. This work was supported by EU Community’s H2020-INFRAIA-Research Infrastructure programme under IPERION HS Project (GA No. 871034)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Applied Physics “Nello Carrara” (IFAC) – National Research Council (CNR), Sesto Fiorentino, FI, Italy

    Iacopo Osticioli, Daniele Ciofini, Marta Mascalchi, Juri Agresti & Salvatore Siano

  2. Physics Department and INFN Sezione Di Firenze, University of Florence, Sesto Fiorentino, FI, Italy

    Silvia Calusi, Eva Martelli & Pier Andrea Mandò

  3. Simona Lombardi’s Studio of Restoration and Conservation, Florence, Italy

    Simona Lombardi

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  1. Iacopo Osticioli
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  2. Daniele Ciofini
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Correspondence to Iacopo Osticioli or Daniele Ciofini.

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Osticioli, I., Ciofini, D., Calusi, S. et al. Advanced photonic techniques for the analysis of the composite French folding fan. Eur. Phys. J. Plus 136, 1105 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-021-02068-6

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