Lecture 14 - Katrien Keune

We are pleased to be joined in this series by the Icon Heritage Science Group.

Katrien Keune, Head of Science, Rijksmuseum, NL

Overview

Old master paintings as well as modern and contemporary art are subjected to changes from the moment they have been made. Discoloration, increased transparency and darkening, crumbling of the paint, paint delamination and loss: these are just some of the degradation phenomena encountered on oil paintings. This presentation focusses on the wide-spread degradation phenomena that is related to pigment-oil binder interactions, which are metal soaps. Metal soap related defects are observed in paintings by amongst others Rembrandt van Rijn, Johannes Vermeer and Piet Mondrian. Approximately 70% of paintings in museum collections are affected by metal soap-related degradation phenomena.

About the speaker

Katrien Keune has a PhD in chemistry and is head of Science at the Rijksmuseum, a sub-department of Conservation & Science responsible for scientific analyses of objects in the Rijksmuseum collection. She also holds an appointment as Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). Her expertise lies in aging and degradation studies of pigments and oil paintings at the micro- and molecular level, especially related to pigment-binding medium interactions