HOT Article: Identifying works of art

19 Apr 2012

In the following paper, Tomasz Gierczak and colleagues from Warsaw University, Poland, present a simple, fast and reliable procedure for identifying the proteinaceous binders in works of art. The procedure consisted of an ammonia extraction in order to suppress any pigment interferences, acidic hydrolysis and finally quantification of underivatized amino acids using reversed phase liquid chromatography coupled with ESI-MS/MS. In this way, the composition of the amino acids of the proteins found in the paint binding media, such as eggs, casein and animal glues, was determined. The procedure was tested on paintings from the 13^th, 18^th and 19^th centuries. Click through here to read more.