4th Meeting X-ray techniques in investigations of the ... - CrysAC

MICRO- PIXE AND MICRO- COMPUTER
TOMOGRAPHY INVESTOGATION ON ELE-
MENTS OF A PORCELAIN VASE
Jakub Bielecki 1 , Sebastian Bożek 1,2 ,
Magdalena Chmielińska 3 , Erazm Dutkiewicz
1 , Zofia Kaszowska 3 , Wojciech
M. Kwiatek 1 , Janusz Lekki 1 , Anna
Mikołajska 3 , Zbigniew Stachura 1
1 The Henryk Niewodniczański Institute
of Nuclear Physics, Polish Academy of
Sciences, Department of Applied Spectroscopy,
Krakow, 2 The Jagiellonian University
Medical College – Department of
Pharmacokinetics and Physical Pharmacy,
Krakow, 3 Academy of Fine Arts – Faculty
of Art Conservation, Krakow, Poland
The micro-PIXE and micro-Computer
Tomography (CT) methods are powerful
tools for non-destructive analysis of
various rare objects, e.g. works of art.
In this study, both methods were used
to investigate the elemental composition
of a painted porcelain vase from the
Łańcut Castle Museum in Poland. The
vase had been broken accidentally into
42
almost 90 bigger and smaller pieces,
and its reconstruction started in 2007.
As it was impossible to fit a few small
elements (a few mm) into their original
places, they have been stored separately.
This apparent misfortune in reconstruction
allowed to perform the analysis of
trace elements present in pigments used
for the vase painting, which is often a
clue to the artwork history. The available
porcelain samples were scanned with the
2 MeV proton micro beam from the Van
de Graa� accelerator and with the X-ray
beam from the Hamamatsu tube. The
PIXE method revealed the presence of
various amounts of Al, Si, K, Ca, Ti, Mn,
Fe, Cu, Sn, and Pb in red, green, blue, yellow,
black and white-grey paints.
A series of PIXE scans allowed to produce
maps of the elemental composition
of the painted surface and the depth
cross-sections. The micro-CT revealed
inhomogeneous density of the porcelain
body and internal details. All these data
correlate well with the independent
historical information about the object
(China, 19 th century).