Capriotti S, Medeghini L, Mignardi Silvano, Petrelli M, Botticelli Michela
Department of Earth Sciences, Sapienza University of Rome, P.le Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy.
Department of Physics and Geology, University of Perugia, Piazza dell'Università, 06123 Perugia, Italy.
Heliyon. 2023 Aug 11;9(8):e19099. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e19099. eCollection 2023 Aug.
The pigments used by artists since ancient times play an important role in historical, artistic, and cultural investigations. They allow the acquisition of useful information for the study of human and technological development. This research aims at differentiating the various sources of azurite exploited in antiquity, based on the study of minor and trace elements. Azurite is one of the most important blue pigments in art history, widely used during the Middle Age and Renaissance. However, very few studies investigated the provenance of the pigment, so today it is still not possible to clearly identify the sources of azurite exploited in the past. This study is based on the analysis of several samples of azurite belonging to the MUST collection (Museum of Earth Sciences, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy) and coming from different historical localities: UK, Italy, Germany, France, Romania and Slovakia (both representative of the resources within the ancient Kingdom of Hungary), Greece and Russia. The samples were analysed by electron microscopy (EMPA and SEM-EDX) and laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS), with the aim of detecting chemical features that are specific to the different azurite ore deposits. Among the trace elements analysed, Zn, As, Sn, Ca and Sr prove the most suitable for discriminating the origin of the samples, as well as rare earth elements. In particular, Ce and Eu anomalies are suggested as markers for the German and Hungarian localities.
自古以来艺术家使用的颜料在历史、艺术和文化研究中发挥着重要作用。它们有助于获取有关人类和技术发展研究的有用信息。本研究旨在通过对微量元素和痕量元素的研究，区分古代开采的蓝铜矿的各种来源。蓝铜矿是艺术史上最重要的蓝色颜料之一，在中世纪和文艺复兴时期被广泛使用。然而，很少有研究调查这种颜料的来源，所以如今仍然无法清楚地确定过去开采的蓝铜矿的来源。本研究基于对属于MUST藏品（意大利罗马第一大学地球科学博物馆）的几个蓝铜矿样本的分析，这些样本来自不同的历史地点：英国、意大利、德国、法国、罗马尼亚和斯洛伐克（均代表古代匈牙利王国境内的资源）、希腊和俄罗斯。通过电子显微镜（电子探针微区分析和扫描电子显微镜-能谱仪）和激光烧蚀-电感耦合等离子体质谱法对样本进行分析，目的是检测不同蓝铜矿矿床特有的化学特征。在所分析的痕量元素中，锌、砷、锡、钙和锶以及稀土元素被证明最适合区分样本的来源。特别是，铈和铕异常被认为是德国和匈牙利产地的标志。
