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Modern Oil Paints – Formulations, Organic Additives and Degradation: Some Case Studies

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Issues in Contemporary Oil Paint

Abstract

This study examines some of the degradation phenomena exhibited by modern oil paintings and twentieth century oil paint formulations and possible correlations with the various organic additives typically introduced by manufacturers. The research takes into consideration historical and modern tube oil paints produced by different European manufacturers and selected twentieth century oil paintings which showed degradation problems such as efflorescence, softening, cracks and sensitivity towards water and polar solvents. The composition of oil paints and paintings samples was studied with XRF, SEM-EDX, ATR-FTIR and GCMS. The results showed that both artists’ oil paints and paintings samples contain a complex mixture of additives to the oil binders and pigments. The presence of aluminium and zinc stearates, added as dispersion agent gelling agents, was detected in most paint formulations of HKS, W&N, Talens and Maimeri (c. 1940-present). Several paint films showed an unusually high content of fatty diacids, suggesting that, in drying, an oxidative reaction was favoured above polymerisation. This occurrence, together with the diversity of lipidic media, additives, pigments and driers present in the industrial formulations could play a crucial role in paint failure and instability, as showed by the analysed case studies. The obtained results may help understanding the behaviour of modern oil paints and painting surfaces and contribute to improved conservation methods.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    These proceedings.

  2. 2.

    As described in S. Litjens, Nederlandse Olieverftubes uit de Twintigste Eeuw, dissertation MA, University of Amsterdam, 2010, the “historical” oil tubes from Talens, HKS and Old Holland come from the Historisch Museum Rotterdam, Chabot Museum Rotterdam, Mauritshius Den Haag and Collectie Old Holland were dated and catalogued.

  3. 3.

    The metal stearates are composed of stearates and palmitates and this complicates their distinction from stearic and palmitic acids present in drying oils.

  4. 4.

    P/S ratios alone cannot provide absolute proof of the kind of oil in modern formulations, since there are different contributions which may interfere (e.g. metal stearates, castor wax, semi drying oils, non-drying oils, etc).

  5. 5.

    The presence of ricinoleic acid is indicative of the use of castor oil, while 11-eicosenoic (gondoic) acid and 13-docosenoic (erucic) acid are the biomarkers for rapeseed oil. In regard to sunflower oil, it is important to say that arachidic and behenic acids are not specific markers; they might be present in linseed oil for example. Nevertheless, in sunflower oil their weight percentage is higher than in linseed oil. The same consideration can be done for safflower oil, in which arachidic acid is present in a higher amount (Dubois et al. 2007).

  6. 6.

    Talens: see (Van den Berg et al. 2014); W&N: verbal communication Ian Garrett, W&N to Klaas Jan van den Berg, Jan. 2010; Old Holland: verbal communication W. van der Zwan to Klaas Jan van den Berg, April 2014.

  7. 7.

    Izzo, Van Keulen, Van den Berg, manuscript in preparation 2014.

  8. 8.

    Wijnberg L., Soldano A., personal communication during conservation treatments, 2010.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Dr. Louise Wijnberg from the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Dr. Matteo Piccolo from the International Gallery of Modern Art Ca’ Pesaro, Venice and Fondazione Lucio Fontana, Milan for providing the interesting case studies for this research. Special thanks go to Dr. Luc Megens and BSc. Suzan de Groot of RCE for their assistance in performing XRF and FTIR-ATR analyses.

Prof. Dr. Aviva Burnstock from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London is acknowledged for providing analysis results of inorganic materials present in W&N paints from 1964 to 1965.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Venice, Italy

    Francesca Caterina Izzo, Barbara Ferriani & Elisabetta Zendri

  2. Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Francesca Caterina Izzo, Klaas Jan van den Berg & Henk van Keulen

  3. Barbara Ferriani Srl, Milan, Italy

    Barbara Ferriani

Authors
  1. Francesca Caterina Izzo
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  2. Klaas Jan van den Berg
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  3. Henk van Keulen
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  4. Barbara Ferriani
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  5. Elisabetta Zendri
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Francesca Caterina Izzo or Klaas Jan van den Berg .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Klaas Jan van den Berg

  2. Department of Conservation & Technology, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, United Kingdom

    Aviva Burnstock

  3. Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Matthijs de Keijzer

  4. National Gallery of Art, Washington,, District of Columbia, USA

    Jay Krueger

  5. Science Department, The Getty Conservation Institute, Los Angeles, California, USA

    Tom Learner

  6. Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Alberto Tagle, de

  7. Cologne University of Applied Sciences, Cologne Institute for Conservation Sciences, Köln, Germany

    Gunnar Heydenreich

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Izzo, F.C., van den Berg, K.J., van Keulen, H., Ferriani, B., Zendri, E. (2014). Modern Oil Paints – Formulations, Organic Additives and Degradation: Some Case Studies. In: van den Berg, K., et al. Issues in Contemporary Oil Paint. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10100-2_5

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