Private Conservator Chris Stavroudis applies a gel formulation
to a section of a painting as part of a weeklong cleaning
experiment at CSUN in November 1998 (see Component
One). The painting, which had been vandalized, was donated
to the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation
for research purposes. Photo Dusan Stulik.
Getty Museum paintings conservator and project team member
Mark Leonard cleans test sections from the painting with solvents
and solvent mixtures commonly used for cleaning painted surfaces
as part of Component Four.
Photo: Dusan Stulik.
Samples are punched from the surface of cleaned sections
and placed in vials. Photo: Valerie Dorge.
Scintillation cocktail is added and the vials are placed
in a scintillation counter for measurement of radioactivity.
Photo: Dusan Stulik.
In a cleaning experiment similar to that carried out on the
painting sections, gel is applied to sections of four materials
commonly found in three-dimensional objects in museum collections-plaster,
marble, terracotta and gilded wood. Samples of these materials
are scintillation counted in a manner similar to the painting
samples. Photo: Dusan Stulik.
Here, a gel is applied to a marble section. The sample lines
are marked on the cleaning surface to guide gel application.
Photo: Valerie Dorge.
Individual samples are carefully separated from the marble
section without disturbing the surface area. The samples are
then placed in the vial with scintillation cocktail in the
Beckman counter. Photo: Herant Khanjian.
Former GCI associate scientist and project team member Narayan
Khandekar takes a sample from The Farewell of Telemachus
and Eucharis by Jacques-Louis David (from the J. Paul
Getty Museum collection) for sampling by pyrolysis-gas chromatography.
Sampling of the surfaces of paintings that have been cleaned
in the past using the gel systems were analyzed for possible
residues as part of Component
Three of this project. Photo: Herant Khanjian.
A tube containing the paint sample is inserted into the pyroprobe
prior to pyrolysis-gas chromatography analysis in order to
determine the amount of gel residue detectable on the paint.
Photo: Herant Khanjian.
