����������������������������������������

MCI Theater Museum Support

Center 4210 Silver Hill Road Suitland, MD 20746

301-238-1240

Topics in Museum

Conservation

MCI

10:45am Septembe 21, 2006

Raman spectroscopy is established as an ana-lytical technique that is particularly specific, sensitive, and spatially refined for the analysis of works of art. The technique is now being ap-plied to many areas of conservation science, for example to the study of pigments, stone, glass, ceramic materials, corrosion products, and bio-

materials. Reference librar-ies for the characterization of many pigments and minerals have been published by sever-al authors, but less attention has been paid to the analysis of synthetic organic pigments such as those developed after the first synthesis of Mauve in 1856, and used in early litho-graphic inks or modern paint; or to the analysis of heteroge-neous organic pigments such as melanin sepia or Van Dyke brown, that give weak signals in the normal Raman spec-tra and require the use of en-hancement methods such as SERS (Surface Enhanced Ra-man Scattering).

Silvia A. CentenoAssociate Research ScientistThe Metropolitan Museum of ArtNew York, NY

Characterization of synthetic organic pigments and dyes, and heterogeneous natural organic pigments by Raman spectroscopy