The contribution of scanning X-ray fluorescence to the investigation of easel paintings: Examples of applications from the Courtauld Gallery

In recent years, a range of spatially resolved imaging techniques to examine paintings has become integrated into the arsenal of analytical methods used in many museum laboratories worldwide. An example is scanning X-ray fluorescence (XRF), a non-invasive method that provides distribution maps of a wide range of elements in materials used for paintings. Scanning XRF has recently been used together with conventional methods for technical study to investigate paintings from the Courtauld Gallery, including Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery, dated to 1565, one of the three surviving grisaille paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, a large-scale Portrait of Don Francisco de Saveedra, painted by Francisco de Goya in 1798, and Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe by Edouard Manet, a smaller an undated version of the large work of the same title painted by the artist in 1863 and on display at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris.