Abstract
Color fading in Vincent van Gogh’s Undergrowth with Two Figures was
studied chemically to facilitate the creation of a digital reconstruction
of fugitive colors. The painting contains a field of white, green, orange,
and yellow flowers under a canopy of poplar trees with two central
figures—a man and a woman, arms entwined. From Van Gogh’s letters,
however, it is known that he painted the picture with some pink flowers,
which appear to have altered, presumably to white. Raman spectroscopy was
applied to microsamples of paint to identify the faded pigment as geranium
lake, which in this painting consists of the dye, eosin
(2′,4′,5′,7′-tetrabromofluorescein). For the first time, lead(II) sulfate
has been specifically identified as the likely inorganic substrate for a
geranium lake used by Van Gogh in the last months of his life. Microfocus
X-ray fluorescence (MXRF) spectroscopy was subsequently used in situ to
analyze the white flowers to identify bromine as a proxy for eosin, thus
indicating an original pink coloration. Of the 387 white flowers analyzed,
37.7% contained measurable bromine and were, therefore, originally pink.
Several cross-sections from these formerly pink areas were assessed using
a combination of visual inspection and microcolorimetry to create a
colored mask in Adobe Photoshop to digitally reconstruct a suggestion of
the original appearance of the painting with regard to the faded flowers.
Additionally, microfadeometry was undertaken for the first time on a
painting cross-section sample to understand the actual fading kinetics of
the underlying bright pink geranium lake used by Van Gogh. A combination
of Raman microspectroscopy, MXRF, and scanning electron microscopy energy
dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) were utilized in situ and on paint
microsamples to identify the complete palette used to create Undergrowth
with Two Figures.
© 2017 The Author(s)
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