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Vivianite (Fe3(PO4)2·8H2O) is a rare blue historical pigment, which can be profitably used in authorship ascription or copy identification. However, its tendency to degrade complicates its proper identification in paint layers. Reference vivianite mineralogical samples were analysed in order to compare and to test the limits of structural analyses on possibly degraded vivianite samples (X‐ray diffraction and vibrational spectroscopies). The same methods, in their μ‐configuration, were tested on micro‐samples of the paintings and their limits evaluated. A sedimentary origin of the pigment has been suggested. Vivianite was detected in various works by Jean George de Hamilton (1672–1737) and in a Late Gothic Transylvanian altarpiece. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pre-Romanesque murals at Kostoľany pod Tríbečom, Slovakia, have been investigated by portable X-ray fluorescence and by microanalytical methods to identify painting materials (pigments and binders), and to explain the degradation of colours. Today, missing green and blue shades have been reconstructed according to residual concentrations of Cu, which correspond to copper chlorides-products of salt corrosion of the copper carbonates azurite and/or malachite, accelerated by micro-organisms. As confirmed by powder X-ray microdiffraction, original minium (Pb3O4) has been transformed to brown-black plattnerite (PbO2). In increased humidity, even insoluble pigments are washing down from the walls and the intensity of colours further diminishes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the most famous historical green earth deposits in Italy and Cyprus were exceptionally rich in celadonite, the deposits near Kadaň, Czech Republic, consisted of thin Fe-rich celadonite impregnations accompanied by interstratified celadonite/smectite. In superimposed tuffs, smectites become prevalent and their colour changes from forest to olive green. Powder X-ray microdiffraction and infrared microspectroscopy permit us to distinguish between green earth minerals in microsamples taken from works of art. The Ti contents and the Fe/Mg ratios help to indicate the presence of Bohemian green earth from Kadaň. We found this material in local 18th-century works of art and also in paintings by Anton Kern (1709-47). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Single-crystals of the layered copper hydroxide acetate Cu2(OH)3(CH3COO)·H2O were synthesized by heating copper acetate solution at 60 °C. The standard synthesis of the title compound based on slow titration of copper acetate solution with NaOH yielded materials with worse morphology and an additional phase present. The obtained products were characterized with powder X-ray diffraction, high temperature powder X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and infrared spectroscopy. The crystal structure was determined from single-crystal X-ray diffraction data, collected both at 120 K and at 293 K. The title compound crystallizes in the monoclinic botallackite-type layered structure, space group P 21, with the lattice parameters a = 5.5776(3) Å, b = 6.0733(2) Å, c = 18.5134(8) Å, β = 91.802(4)° and a = 5.5875(4)Å, b = 6.0987(4) Å, c = 18.6801(10)Å, β = 91.934(5)° for 120 K and for 293 K, respectively. Acetate groups and water molecules are interlayered between corrugated sheets of edge-sharing CuO6 octahedra exhibiting strong distortion resulted from the Jahn-Teller effect. (© 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]