Researchers from Northwestern University and the Art Institute of Chicago said their accomplishment marks the first comprehensive survey of the alloy composition of a large number of cast bronze sculptures by major European artists from the first half of the 20th century.
The sculptures studied, from the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, included works by Matisse, Picasso, Renoir and Rodin, among other masters.
The research team, led by Marcus Young while a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Northwestern Professor David Dunand, used a form of optical emission spectroscopy to determine the metal composition of the 62 bronze sculptures cast in Paris.
"By expanding the … database of objects studied, these material correlations may become useful for identifying, dating or possibly even authenticating other bronzes that do not bear foundry marks," the authors said.
The research that included Professors James Krebs, Margie Krebs and Joseph Lambert, as well as Francesca Casadio and Susie Schnepp of the Art Institute, appears online in the journal Analytical & Bioanalytical Chemistry.
Copyright 2009 by United Press International.
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