Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Fra Angelico’s painting technique revealed by terahertz time-domain imaging (THz-TDI)

  • Published:
Applied Physics A Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

We have investigated with terahertz time-domain imaging (THz-TDI) the well-known Lamentation over the dead Christ panel painting (San Marco Museum, Florence) painted by Fra Giovanni Angelico within 1436 and 1441. The investigation provided a better understanding of the construction and gilding technique used by the eminent artist, as well as the plastering technique used during the nineteenth-century restoration intervention. The evidence obtained from THz-TDI scans was correlated with the available documentation on the preservation history of the art piece. Erosion and damages documented for the wooden support, especially in the lower margin, found confirmation in the THz-TD images.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Laboratorio Restauri of the former Soprintendenza Speciale per il Patrimonio Storico, Artistico ed Etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale della città di Firenze—now affiliated to the Polo Museale Regionale della Toscana—in Florence.

References

  1. W.L. Chan, J. Deibel, D.M. Mittleman, Imaging with terahertz radiation. Rep. Prog. Phys. 70(8), 1325–1379 (2007)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  2. I. Duling, D. Zimdars, Terahertz imaging: revealing hidden defects. Nat. Photonics 3(11), 630–632 (2009)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  3. J.-L. Bodnar, J.-J. Metayer, K. Mouhoubi, V. Detalle, Non destructive testing of works of art by terahertz analysis. Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys. 64(2), 21001 (2013)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  4. R.M. Groves, B. Pradarutti, E. Kouloumpi, W. Osten, G. Notni, 2D and 3D non-destructive evaluation of a wooden panel painting using shearography and terahertz imaging. NDT E Int. 42(6), 543–549 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. M. Picollo, K. Fukunaga, J. Labaune, Obtaining noninvasive stratigraphic details of panel paintings using terahertz time domain spectroscopy imaging system. J. Cult. Herit. 16(1), 73–80 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. A. Bendada, S. Sfarra, C. Ibarra-Castanedo, M. Akhloufi, J.-P.P. Caumes, C. Pradere, J.-C. Batsale, X. Maldague, C.I. Castanedo, M. Akhloufi, J.-P.P. Caumes, Subsurface imaging for panel paintings inspection: a comparative study of the ultraviolet, the visible, the infrared and the terahertz spectra. Opto Electron. Rev 23(1), 88–99 (2015)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  7. C.L.K. Dandolo, P.U. Jepsen, THz reflectometric imaging of contemporary panel artwork, in 2013 38th International Conference on Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves (IRMMW-THz) (2013), pp. 1–2

  8. C.L. Koch Dandolo, A. Cosentino, P. Uhd Jepsen, Inspection of panel paintings beneath gilded finishes using terahertz time-domain imaging. Stud. Conserv. Suppl 60, S159–S166 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. C.L. Koch Dandolo, T. Filtenborg, J. Skou-Hansen, P.U. Jepsen, Analysis of a seventeenth-century panel painting by reflection terahertz time-domain imaging (THz-TDI): contribution of ultrafast optics to museum collections inspection. Appl. Phys. A 121(3), 981–986 (2015)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  10. A.S. Skryl, J.B. Jackson, M.I. Bakunov, M. Menu, G.A. Mourou, Terahertz time-domain imaging of hidden defects in wooden artworks: application to a Russian icon painting. Appl. Opt. 53(6), 1033 (2014)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  11. A. Cosentino, C.L. Koch-Dandolo, A. Cristaudo, P. Uhd Jepsen, Diagnostics pre and post conservation on a 14th century gilded icon from Taormina, Sicily. E-conserv. J. 3, 1–7 (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  12. L. Uzielli, Z. Véliz, J. Wadum, P. Walker, History of panel-making techniques, in The Structural Conservation of Panel Paintings—Proceedings of a Symposium at the J. Paul Getty Museum, April 1995, vol. Part two (1998), pp. 109–185

  13. K. Fukunaga, M. Picollo, Terahertz spectroscopy applied to the analysis of artists’ materials. Appl. Phys. A 100(3), 591–597 (2010)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  14. K. Fukunaga, M. Picollo, Characterisation of works of art, in Terahertz Spectroscopy and Imaging Springer Series in Optical Sciences 171 (2013), pp. 521–538

  15. M. Salmi, Fra Angelico|Italian painter|Britannica.com. Encyclopaedia Britanica (2014). [Online]. http://global.britannica.com/biography/Fra-Angelico. Accessed 17 Oct 2015

  16. Regione Toscana, Visit the Places of Faith in Tuscany—Ex Oratorio della Compagnia di Santa Maria Vergine della Croce al Tempio. [Online]. http://web.rete.toscana.it/Fede/ricerca.jsp. Accessed 17 Oct 2015

  17. ISCR, Portale ARES, DOC 4052 Mostra di dipinti restaurati. [Online]. http://www.iscr-ares.beniculturali.it:8080/ares/ricerche.do?formAction15&idintervento=3752&type=DOC. Accessed 17 Oct 2015

  18. ISCR, Portale ARES. [Online]. http://www.iscr-ares.beniculturali.it:8080/ares/ricerche.do?formAction15&idintervento=3752&type=FOT. Accessed 07 May 2016

  19. D. Zimdars, J.V. Rudd, M. Warmuth, in A Compact, Fiber-Pigtailed, Terahertz Time Domain Spectroscopy System. [Online]. http://web.eecs.umich.edu/~jeast/zimdars_2000_7_15.pdf. Accessed 01 Nov 2015

  20. J.D. Buron, D.H. Petersen, P. Bøggild, D.G. Cooke, M. Hilke, J. Sun, E. Whiteway, P.F. Nielsen, O. Hansen, A. Yurgens, P.U. Jepsen, Graphene conductance uniformity mapping. Nano Lett. 12(10), 5074–5081 (2012)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  21. F.J. Harris, On the use of windows for harmonic analysis with the discrete Fourier transform. Proc. IEEE 66(1), 51–83 (1978)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  22. J. Liu, W.-H. Fan, X. Chen, J. Xie, Identification of high explosive RDX using terahertz imaging and spectral fingerprints. J. Phys: Conf. Ser. 680, 012030 (2016)

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  23. H. Zhong, J. Xu, X. Xie, T. Yuan, R. Reightler, E. Madaras, X.C. Zhang, Nondestructive defect identification with terahertz time-of-flight tomography. IEEE Sens. J. 5(2), 203–207 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. A.J.L. Adam, P.C.M. Planken, S. Meloni, J. Dik, Terahertz imaging of hidden paint layers on canvas. Opt. Express 17(5), 3407–3416 (2009)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  25. A.K. Azad, W. Zhang, Resonant terahertz transmission in subwavelength metallic hole arrays of sub-skin-depth thickness. Opt. Lett. 30(21), 2945 (2005)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

Authors are grateful to Magnolia Scudieri, Elena Prandi, and Marina Ginanni of the Ufficio e Laboratorio Restauri of the former Soprintendenza Speciale per il Patrimonio Storico, Artistico ed Etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale della città di Firenze –now affiliated to the Polo Museale della città di Firenze—now part of the Gallerie degli Uffizi, for having allowed the access and measurements on the panel paintings from the collections of the San Marco museum, in Florence and for the useful discussions we had together. The authors also express their gratitude to the ISCR (Istituto Superiore per la Conservazione ed il Restauro) for the images and data we have accessed thanks to their online archival resource. The authors also want to thank the private conservator Lucia Dori for her support. Corinna L. Koch Dandolo wants to acknowledge with gratitude the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) for having partially supported this research.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Corinna Ludovica Koch Dandolo

    Present address: Centro de Investigaciones en Óptica, Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico

Authors and Affiliations

  1. DTU FOTONIK, Department of Photonics Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Kgs., Lyngby, Denmark

    Corinna Ludovica Koch Dandolo & Peter Uhd Jepsen

  2. IFAC-CNR, Via Madonna del Piano, 10, FI, 50019, Italy

    Marcello Picollo & Costanza Cucci

Authors
  1. Corinna Ludovica Koch Dandolo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Marcello Picollo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Costanza Cucci
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Peter Uhd Jepsen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Corinna Ludovica Koch Dandolo.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Koch Dandolo, C.L., Picollo, M., Cucci, C. et al. Fra Angelico’s painting technique revealed by terahertz time-domain imaging (THz-TDI). Appl. Phys. A 122, 898 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-016-0396-x

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-016-0396-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation