infocus #35 September 2014 Detecting Artist's Material Anachronisms in Historic Paintings through Polarized Microscopy.pdf

With my semi-retirement calling, I have been working as a freelance Forensic Art Historian. My principal tool for identifying artist’s materials is the Polarized Light Microscope.

DOI: 10.22443/rms.inf.1.113

One method of art forgery detection involving artist’s materials is identifying anachronisms. Anachronisms are artist’s materials whose discovery and start dates for commercial availability are inconsistent with the supposed date of creation of the paintings under investigation. An anachronism example involving 19th century paintings would be Titanium White whose date of commercial availability is 1920/23. If Titanium White is found extensively in a supposed Juan Luna (1857-1899) painting, this could be grounds for questioning the true vintage - hence, authenticity - of the painting.

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