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Unraveling the Composition of Rembrandt's Impasto through the Identification of Unusual Plumbonacrite by Multimodal X‐ray Diffraction Analysis
Author(s) -
Gonzalez Victor,
Cotte Marine,
Wallez Gilles,
van Loon Annelies,
de Nolf Wout,
Eveno Myriam,
Keune Katrien,
Noble Petria,
Dik Joris
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
angewandte chemie international edition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.831
H-Index - 550
eISSN - 1521-3773
pISSN - 1433-7851
DOI - 10.1002/anie.201813105
Subject(s) - pigment , composition (language) , materials science , polymer science , diffraction , crystallography , chemistry , mineralogy , art , optics , physics , organic chemistry , literature
Rembrandt (1606–1669) is renowned for his impasto technique, involving his use of lead white paint with outstanding rheological properties. This paint was obtained by combining lead white pigment (a mixture of cerussite PbCO 3 and hydrocerussite Pb 3 (CO 3 ) 2 (OH) 2 ) with an organic binding medium, but the exact formulation used by Rembrandt remains a mystery. A powerful combination of high‐angle and high‐lateral resolution x‐ray diffraction was used to investigate several microscopic paint samples from four Rembrandt masterpieces. A rare lead compound, plumbonacrite (Pb 5 (CO 3 ) 3 O(OH) 2 ), was detected in areas of impasto. This can be considered a fingerprint of Rembrandt's recipe and is evidence of the use of an alkaline binding medium, which sheds a new light on Rembrandt's pictorial technique.