Abstract
Water sensitivity has been observed on unvarnished, twentieth century oil paintings, which presents issues for surface cleaning. Previous studies have shown that manufacturers’ formulations are contributing to one of the known causes of water sensitivity: magnesium sulphate heptahydrate formation. It has been proposed that the formation of this water soluble degradation product is a result of interactions between the paint additive magnesium carbonate with environmental sulphur dioxide at elevated relative humidity. The present study examined the presence of this water soluble degradation product on the surface and in the bulk paint films of naturally aged Winsor & Newton paint swatches made from the 1940s to the 1990s. Scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX) was the primary method for detection. Heptahydrate crystalline entities on the surface were found to be below the detection limit for X-ray diffraction (XRD). Water immersion tests suggested that water sensitivity due to magnesium sulphate heptahydrate formation is largely a surface phenomenon. Painting case studies helped to contextualise the problem in light of future conservation treatments for water sensitive paintings.
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Acknowledgements
This research was undertaken in collaboration between the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, TATE, London and the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE), Amsterdam. The authors would like to thank: Luc Megens, Jolanda van Iperen, and Marc Vermeulen (RCE), Annette King and Nelly von Aderkas (TATE), Alex Ball (National History Museum, London), Bill Luckhurst (King’s College, London), Ian Garrett (Winsor & Newton), as well as Laura Mills, Hannah Tempest and Genevieve Silvester for their previous research which has helped to inform this study.
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Cooper, A., Burnstock, A., van den Berg, K.J., Ormsby, B. (2014). Water Sensitive Oil Paints in the Twentieth Century: A Study of the Distribution of Water-Soluble Degradation Products in Modern Oil Paint Films. In: van den Berg, K., et al. Issues in Contemporary Oil Paint. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10100-2_20
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10100-2_20
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