Noir: Technical Examination and Analysis of 19th-century Black Drawing Materials

Until recently, the ability of researchers to accurately identify drawing materials and application techniques in 19th-century French drawings was limited. In 2016, the Getty exhibition—and related publication—Noir: The Romance of Black in 19th-Century French Drawings and Prints (February 9–May 15, 2016) examined how artists of the period used a newly expanded range of drawing materials. Responding to the exhibition’s emphasis on materiality, a team of Getty conservators, conservation scientists, and curators developed a framework for the technical examination of drawings that has provided new insight into the variety of materials used and artistic techniques. Conservators continue to explore expanded application of this framework.

Utilizing advanced imaging technologies, researchers were able to discriminate between different black drawing media, which, to the unaided eye, appear very similar if not identical. This resulted in a better understanding of artists’ material choices and techniques, notably providing insight into the working process of Odilon Redon.

Advances in Black Drawing Materials

During the Industrial Revolution, France saw a proliferation of black drawing media—fabricated chalk, conte crayon, and lithographic crayon to name a few—which gave rise to unprecedented experimentation in drawing and printmaking. Artists also manipulated media (by blending, erasing, or scraping) and used fixatives to produce different effects.

Black and the Changing Subject

The same period saw the rise of the Realist style in art, when black drawing materials became linked to artists' subjects. For example, in Courbet’s drawing Head of Sleeping Bacchante, former Getty curator Lee Hendrix suggests that “the deep deposits of this black and the grittiness of it are as much of a part of the image, really, as the subject matter.” Although the image depicts a follower of Bacchus, the sitter is thought to be one of Courbet’s sisters who is wearing the dress of a peasant in 19th-century France. At the rise of Realism, artists such as Courbet and Jean-Francois Millet began moving away from the mythological world to instead depict working-class people.

New Methods of Scientific Examination

Until recently, the ability of researchers to accurately identify drawing materials and application techniques in 19th-century French drawings was limited, because in most cases the removal of samples large enough for study would cause an unacceptable amount of damage to the drawing. While to the trained eye close observation could help discriminate between different classes of drawing materials—e.g. dryer appearing chalks versus conte crayons which would appear more waxy—the application of fixatives or other materials often complicate visual identification. However, recent developments in imaging and spectroscopic techniques that can operate in situ—i.e. without the need for removal of any material or causing any damage—has opened up new avenues for the characterization of these black drawing materials.

Exhibitions

From February 9–May 15, 2016, Getty presented Noir: The Romance of Black in 19th-Century French Drawings and Prints. Inspired by a landscape drawing by Maxime Lalanne acquired by Getty, the exhibition surveyed the properties and relationships between a wide range of prints and drawings by artists using black materials and new techniques that emerged in 19th-century France, prompting exploration by conservators into their material makeup and artistic techniques. Similar studies are underway for the exhibition Odilon Redon: Otherworldly Visions (July 14–October 18, 2026), which will build upon this foundational framework.

Collaboration

Getty Museum conservators worked closely with curatorial and scientific staff to better understand the drawings in the Noir exhibition from a technical standpoint and communicate this information in an accessible way to visitors. Conservators Michelle Sullivan and Nancy Yocco collaborated on drafting technique-focused gallery didactics and organized a related display of materials for the exhibition. The artworks in the exhibition were from Getty’s collection and local lenders who generously provided their works on long-term loan, allowing for extensive study. Working with Conservation Institute scientists Nathan Daly, Lynn Lee, and Karen Trentelman, methods of non-invasive analysis—high-power digital microscopy, macro X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy scanning (macro-XRF), and Raman spectroscopy—were used to characterize and describe black drawing media with greater accuracy.

The primary imaging techniques used by Conservation Institute scientists were macro X-ray fluorescence (MA-XRF) scanning, which provides a map of the distribution of individual chemical elements across an object, and reflectance imaging spectroscopy (RIS), which shows how the materials appear under different wavelengths of light. The images generated from these two imaging techniques guided researchers in the selection of areas for additional analysis. Raman microspectroscopy and fiber optic reflectance spectroscopy (FORS), both non-invasive and non-destructive techniques, helped researchers further characterize the black drawing materials. Individually, the results of each of these techniques are insufficient to identify the black drawing material. But employing statistical analysis methods to extract and identify patterns from the combined set of data allowed the material make-up as well as artistic application to be more accurately understood.

Thomas Boers, 2025–26 Getty Graduate Intern, Conservation Institute
Danielle Canter, Assistant Curator, Department of Drawings
Nathan Daly, 2017–19 Postdoctoral Fellow, Conservation Institute
Lee Hendrix, former Senior Curator, Department of Drawings
Lynn Lee, former Assistant Scientist, Conservation Institute
Catherine Patterson, Scientist, Conservation Institute
Natasha Reich, Visiting Scientist, CalTech
Michelle Sullivan, Associate Conservator of Drawings, Department of Paper Conservation
Karen Trentelman, Senior Scientist, Conservation Institute
Nancy Yocco, former Conservator of Drawings, Department of Paper Conservation

Acknowledgments

Casey Lee, former Curatorial Assistant, Department of Drawings