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Featured article - Shrinkage and mechanical properties of drying oil paints

Understanding how the evolving molecular composition of an oil paint layer on its transition to an aged solid film affects its dimensional change and mechanical properties is fundamental to the assessment of material durability and more broadly risk of degradation of oil paintings. Tensile properties—modulus of elasticity and strain at break—as well as cumulative shrinkage were determined for a selection of oil paints from Mecklenburg’s Paint Reference Collection now after approximately 30 years of drying. The oil paints were found to get stiffer and more brittle with diminishing plastic deformation and increasingly elastic behaviour. For some paints, the increases in stiffness and decreases in the strain at break were dramatic during the late stage of drying. The observations modify the current physical model of paintings in which the mismatch in the response of glue-based ground layer and unrestrained wood or canvas support to variations in relative humidity (RH) has been identified as the worst-case condition for the fracturing of the entire pictorial layer. This study demonstrated that some paints were more brittle than the glue-based ground layer and as a consequence more vulnerable to cracking. The shrinkage of paints due to molecular relocation and/or evaporation of organic medium as they dry and age was measured. This shrinkage can exceed their strain at break and lead to fracturing of the oil paint layer if it is restrained by a dimensionally stable substrate. Consequently, after long-term drying, the cumulative shrinkage can cause oil paints to crack even in absence of fluctuations in RH or temperature. An example of cracking developed in an oil paint layer on the top of an undamaged ground layer in a historic panel painting was made evident by the X-ray microtomography.

Image: X-ray microtomographs of pictorial layer in a historic panel painting; cross-sections parallel to the surface: a paint layer, b ground. For presentation, the X-ray absorbing material is represented on a grey scale in which white and black colours correspond to highly and least absorbing materials, respectively. The black spots in the X-ray microtomograph of the paint layer correspond to grains of the blue pigment, most probably natural ultramarine

Featured collection - Preventive Conservation, Predictive Analysis and Environmental Monitoring

Heritage Science is pleased to present this article collection, supported by the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia in Spain. This set of articles aims to show the ongoing research and latest technological advances in the study of the behavior and aging of cultural heritage materials, environmental monitoring, and their contribution in the design of preventive conservation strategies developed in the framework of CollectionCare (www.collectioncare.eu), an EU-funded project involving 18 partners from 9 countries between 2019 and 2022. Selected contributions from the conference “CollectionCare: New Challenges in Preventive Conservation, Predictive Analysis and Environmental Monitoring” are presented, alongside contributions from research groups working in relevant areas. 

Articles

2022

Advanced Analytical Techniques for Heritage Textiles
Edited by Christina Margariti, Hana Lukesova, Francisco B. Gomes
Collection published: 2 November 2022

The Future of Heritage Science and Technologies: Papers from Florence Heri-Tech 2022
Edited by Rocco Furferi , Maria Perla Colombini, Kate Seymour, Anna Pelagotti, Francesco Gherardini
Collection published: 19 October 2022

IPERION HS: Integrating Platforms for the European Research Infrastructure on Heritage Science
Edited by Marei Hacke, Jana Striova, Matija Strlič
Collection published: 7 September 2022

Preventive Conservation, Predictive Analysis and Environmental Monitoring
Edited by Ángel F. Perles, Laura Fuster-López, Emanuela Bosco
Collection published: 3 August 2022 

Thoroughly Modern: Investigating Materials and Techniques
Edited by Ana Martins, Abed Haddad
Collection published: 25 May 2022

2021

Cleaning and Conservation
Edited by Bronwyn Ormsby, Angelica Bartoletti, Klaas van den Berg, Chis Stavroudis
Collection published: 3 November 2021

Space Technologies for Sustainable Heritage: 10th Anniversary of HIST
Collection published: 1 June 2021

2020

The Network Initiative for Conservation Science (NICS): Building Bridges across New York City Museums
Edited by Federica Pozzi and Elena Basso
Collection published: 8 August 2020

Pigments, dyes, and colors in Latin american archaeometric investigations
Edited by Marcela Sepulveda, Edgar Casanova
Collection published: 20 May 2020

2019

NANORESTART: Nanomaterials for the restoration of works of art
Edited by Piero Baglioni
Collection published: 31 October 2019

The Girl in the Spotlight: A technical re-examination of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring
Edited by Abbie Vandivere
Collection published: 29 August 2019

13th IRUG Conference
Edited by Paula Dredge
Collection published: 16 August 2019
 

2018

5th International Congress on Chemistry for Cultural Heritage
Edited by Dr Elena Badea
Collection published: 23 November 2018

Manuscripts in the Making
Edited by Dr Paola Ricciardi
Collection published: 9 March 2018


2017

Historic Monuments of the World
Collection published: 10 October 2017

2nd International Conference on Science and Engineering in Arts, Heritage, and Archaeology
Edited by Prof. Heather Viles, Dr Yun Lieu and Dr Karina Rodriguez Echavarria
Collection published: 30 January 2017

4th International Congress on Chemistry for Cultural Heritage
Edited by Dr Geert van der Snickt
Collection published: 24 January 2017


2016

Heritage Science in Australia
Collection published: 22 December 2016

The SEAHA-CDT collection
Edited by: Dr Josep Grau-Bove
Collection published: 7 November 2016

Shedding light on the past: Optical Technologies Applied to Cultural Heritage
Edited by: Prof. Demetrios Anglos
Collection published: 14 April 2016


2015

Imaging and Analysis of Cultural Heritage Materials
Edited by: Dr Edward Vicenzi
Collection published: 1 December 2015

11th International Conference on Indoor Air Quality in Heritage and Historic Environments
Edited by: Dr Jiri Smolik
Collection published: 22 September 2015

Archaeometry international workshop: XRF and Raman applied in archaeology
Edited by: Dr Marcela Sepulveda
Collection published: 11 June 2015

3rd International Congress on Chemistry for Cultural Heritage
Edited by: Prof. Manfred Schreiner, Dr Rita Wiesinger
Collection published: 2 April 2015


2014

VIII Italian National Congress of Archaeometry
Edited by: Prof Colombini Maria Perla, Dr Alessandra Bonazza
Collection published: 15 December 2014

Technart 2013: Analytical Spectroscopy in Art and Archaeology, the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, 23-26 September 2013
Collection published: 30 May 2014


2013

Scientific Methods in Archaeology
Edited by: Dr Kaare Lund Rasmussen
Collection published: 6 June 2013

International Conference on Modern Chemical Technology in the Protection of Cultural Heritage, China 2012
Edited by: Prof Ling He
Collection published: 15 April 2013

Suggestions for article collections

Heritage Science welcomes proposals for new special article collections on timely topics relating to its aims and scope. If you have a suggestion for a topical collection that you think should be featured in the journal, please click on the link to access a suggestion form. 

Ten years of Heritage Science 


The article describes the revolutionary new ways of communicating the written word when moving from the Medieval to Modern period in Europe, primarily the use of paper and moveable typeface printing and how these catalysed important cultural developments. A similar revolution has taken place in the last 50 years with the development of the internet.

The article looks at how scientific publishing has changed with electronic publishing, including the development of Open Access. The journal Heritage Science is placed into this context. Especially important for scientific journals in an era when anyone can post anything on a webpage, is maintaining standards through high quality refereeing which distinguishes formal scientific literature from informal websites.

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Aims and Scope

Heritage Science is an open access journal publishing original peer-reviewed research covering scientific, mathematical and computational methods and analysis of objects, materials, artefacts and artworks of cultural and historical significance in the context of heritage and conservation studies.

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Editor-in-Chief Professor Richard BreretonRichard Brereton, Editor-in-Chief
Prof Richard Brereton is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Royal Statistical Society and Royal Society of Medicine. He graduated with a BA, MA and PhD from the University of Cambridge. He has published some 400 articles, including 8 books, and has been cited around 4500 times. He has given over 150 invited lectures in 30 countries. 

He is currently director of Brereton Consultancy and Emeritus Professor at the University of Bristol. His interests are primarily in data analysis, including pattern recognition as applied to primarily analytical data from various sources including objects of cultural significance.

Annual Journal Metrics

  • 2022 Citation Impact
    2.5 - 2-year Impact Factor
    2.7 - 5-year Impact Factor
    1.526 - SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper)
    0.547 - SJR (SCImago Journal Rank)
    3.9 - CiteScore

    2022 Speed
    9 days submission to first editorial decision for all manuscripts (Median)
    102 days submission to accept (Median)

    2022 Usage
    822,701 downloads
    1,767 Altmetric mentions

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