ABOUT CATS PROJECTS NEWS CATS Newsletter VIII Welcome to the eighth edition of the CATS newsletter with information on the latest projects, collaborations and analyses within CATS and its partners. ARCHLAB, MOLAB and FIXLAB Integrated Platform for the European Research Infrastructure ON Culture Heritage The deadline for the Archlab proposals has been postponed to October 15th 2015 Following the successful project CHARISMA, the new project IPERION CH , where CATS is one of the 23 partners, has had its first call for proposals. In the frame of the European strategy Horizon 2020, IPERION CH gives scientific teams access to world-class tools and knowledge of Europe's leading facilities in Her- itage Science. Groups of researchers from European or associated countries can ap- ply with their proposal every six month (next time around March) to access one or more of the 19 facilities. The three advanced transnational platforms where access is offered to are: ARCHLAB (archives in European museums or conservation institutes) FIXLAB (the Integrated platforms where large scale facilities are coupled with medium scale installations) MOLAB (MObile LABoratory - the mobile facilities for in situ non-invasive meas- urements) New research project on the Danish artist Abildgaard Lead by Line Bregnhøi, M.Sc. in Conservation, National Museum of Denmark Research on the easel painting technique and materials of the artist N. A. Abild- gaard has recently been carried out by Troels Filtenborg and CATS and published in the book Between Formula and Freestyle, Archetype, London 2014. However, Abildgaard (1743-1809) also worked as an architect and interior design- er. Complementing the above, a technical art history project is currently being un- dertaken with a focus on around 15 of his interiors. Data from previous architec- tural paint investigations of his interiors are collected. Analyses on painting tech- niques, binding media and pigments are performed by the labs at the National Gal- lery of Denmark and the National Museum of Denmark. The project will result in illuminating the palette of Abild- gaard’s interiors, and placing them in an archi- tectural and technical art his- torical context. The period for the research project is 2015- 2016. Second visit from CATS at the Synchrotron in Sweden For the second time CATS will gain access to experiment time at MAX-lab FTIR beam line in Lund. The synchrotron analyses are aimed at understanding the deg- radation mechanisms of different pigments regarding current inter- national research projects. The results achieved using the syn- chrotron facility will complement the ones obtained at CATS. CATS contributions to international conferences Jørgen Wadum, director of CATS, was an invited speaker at the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, USA, in conjunction with the Summer Teachers Institute in Technical Art History, generously funded by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. The lecture examined Rembrandt van Rijn’s paint handling from his early years in Lei- den, the Netherlands, to his mature Amsterdam period and also discusses works by Rembrandt’s students before analysing the illusionistic painting techniques of Johannes Vermeer. David Buti, conservation scientist, represented CATS at the Technart conference with a poster concerning the use of clay grounds in paintings. To better understand the role of clay as a material in grounds and its influence on painting techniques, a number of Danish and Italian 17th century paintings from the Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK) collection were surveyed by means of SEM-EDX analyses, FTIR and Raman spectroscopy in order to characterise the materials employed in the red ground layers. The results indicated that these Danish and Italian grounds consist mainly of clay and quartz mixed with iron-based compounds. The investigation demonstrated how widespread the use was of clays as constituent in paintings when comparing the analytical results performed on artworks from Northern and Southern Europe. Read the poster here. Optical mi- croscopy photograph of the cross- section A4039 (Frantz Cle- in 1582- 1658) with incident light, dark field and 20x magnifi- cation. Aoife Daly, dendrochronologist, represented CATS by giving a lecture at the Uni- versity of Arizona, Tree-Ring Lab, USA. Aoife presented some of the most recent provenance determination results that have emerged through her research in Northern Europe. Using examples, not only of barrel finds, but also of construction timber that can be shown to be imports, and of course of ships that carried these cargos, Aoife showed how the dendrochronological evidence indicates that con- tacts between regions changes with time. Analysing pigments used by Hans Hansen on the 4th of May Hall of Residence at Frederiksberg in Copenhagen Colour archeological examinations by Conservator Anja Liss Petersen and anal- yses by Scientist Mads Chr. Christensen, National Museum of Denmark When reconstructing colours and colour schemes in older buildings it can be a great help to use pigment analysis. We used this method in reconstructing the col- ours of the 4th of May Hall of Residence situated in Frederiksberg and built by the Danish architect Hans Hansen during the period 1949-1951. Today there are very few buildings remaining by Hans Hansen, which made it essential and important to reconstruct the colour schemes at the 4th of May Hall of Residence. It was decided to conduct an analysis on all the original pigments, since they would complement the paint layer identification (uncovering of layers) made by the con- servators at the National Museum of Denmark. In that way it was possible to re- construct Hans Hansen’s colours schemes very precisely. The paint samples were examined by optical microscope, micro chemical spot test and FT-IR spectroscopy. One of the samples from a thick wallpaper is showed by the cross-section (Fig. 1), where two blue paint layers are visible and a number of white paint layers on top of those. FT-IR spectroscopy shows that the blue colour Fig. 1 Fig. 2 contains pipe clay and chalk as a filler and most likely phthalocyanine blue, which is a pigment developed in 1930 and today it is one of the most important blue pig- ments in the paint industry. The dark red paint layer (on a thick wallpaper) was al- so examined by microscope and with micro chemical spot test (Fig. 2), which showed that the red paint layer is painted twice and has about four white paint layers on top. Analyses shows that the dark red colour is based on iron oxide and ‘sprinkled’ with a red synthetic pigment. In the recent past the National Museum of Denmark have focused on the conser- vation and restoration of interior decorations from the 1900s, their ornaments and colours. This research area will continue to be developed with projects including colour studies of Hans Hansen in KB-hallen (1938), conservation of frescos from 1928-35 by Jais Nielsen (financed by the Carlsberg foundation) and the removing of Sigurd Swane’s oil paintings with Strappo Method (also financed by the Carls- berg Foundation). Read more... CATS Proceedings now available for free download The International Conference Technology & Prac- tice: Studying 18th-Century Paintings & Art on Pa- per was held by CATS at the Frederiksberg Palace, Copenhagen 2-3 June 2014. The conference fo- cused on artists’ techniques and materials, source research, conservation science, the history of sci- ence and technology, history of trade, and phar- macy during the 18th century and explored tradi- tion and changes in artistic practices seen in the light of the establishment of a series of national Art Academies in Europe throughout the century. Download the proceedings here or buy it as hard copy format from Archetype Publications. Celebration of the completion of Gerson Digital: Denmark In order to celebrate the completion of Gerson Digital: Denmark a CATS symposi- um were held at Statens Museum for Kunst and Rosenborg Castle in Copenhagen on the 24th of June. We would like to thank everyone for their participation in this event where ten speakers from Denmark and the Netherlands presented different angles on the cultural exchange between the Netherlands and Denmark from 1500 to 1900. Read more about the Gerson Digital Project and the Gerson Digital: Den- mark here. You receive the newsletter from CATS because you have registered on www.cats-cons.dk If you wish no longer to receive the newsletter you can unsubscribe here: UNSUBSCRIBE .