Structural Examination of Easel Paintings with Optical Coherence Tomography

摘要

Indentification of the order, thickness, composition,nand possibly the origin of the paint layers form-ning the structure of a painting, that is, its stratig-nraphy, is important in confirming its attribution andnhistory as well as planning conservation treatments.nThe most common method of examination is anal-nysis of a sample collected from the art object, bothnvisually with a microscope and instrumentallynthrough a variety of sophisticated, modern analyt-nical tools. Because of its invasiveness, however, sampling is less than ideally compatible with conservation ethics; itnis severely restricted with respect to the amount of material extirpated from the artwork. Sampling is also rather lim-nited in that it provides only very local information. There is, therefore, a great need for a noninvasive method withnsufficient in-depth resolution for resolving the stratigraphy of works of art.