Question the material, not the signature.
Characterising the pigments, binders, grounds, supports and reworkings of a painting — without sampling.
A doubt about a work is rarely a doubt about its style. It is a doubt about what it is made of: did this pigment exist yet? does this ground match that workshop? what is under this overpaint?
These questions have material answers. For a long time, the only way to get them was to take a sample.
Every modality in a single register.
High-resolution visible imaging, infrared, extended near-infrared, ultraviolet fluorescence, X-radiography, X-ray fluorescence, Raman, Fourier-transform infrared, profilometry, microscopy: all acquired on one bench and referenced to a common register.
That co-registration is what gives the whole its meaning. A chemical signature is located on the map of the work, not recorded in the void.
- An analysis report setting out the materials identified and where they are
- Documentation of the interventions detected and, where possible, their relative chronology
- Raw data, open to re-examination by a third party
- Access to the ART-SAV® viewer to explore every modality
Stated plainly.
We establish compatibilities and incompatibilities: this material is consistent with that period, that one is not.
An incompatibility is a hard fact. A compatibility is never proof of authenticity — it rules out a hypothesis, it does not demonstrate another.
We do not take that step. It is for the experts to take, weighing our findings against everything else.
Tell us about your works.
Describe what you need. We will tell you what can be measured, what cannot, and what it involves.