Degradation Products Assessment of the Wooden Painted Surfaces from a XVIIth Heritage Monastery

Currently, approximately 70% of paintings in museum collections are affected by the presence of metallic soaps, evidenced by spherical globules visible on the surface of the paintings. They are responsible for altering the paintings’ surface through processes such as exfoliation and cracking, or even in the form of surface “skins” that appear in the pictorial layers. The objective of this study is the investigation of the icon paintings from Saint Mary Monastery, Techirghiol, Romania, which underwent some restoration procedures. This study is so important/significant, due to the presence of efflorescence that is correlated with the conversion of some fatty acids, as palmitic acid, stearic acid and azelaic acid, in the so-called metallic soaps through the reaction of the metals contained in the pigments from the painting layer and the binder. The investigated paintings are strongly affected by zinc carboxylate aggregation, and for this, the sample was embedded in polyester resin and the obtained cross-section, after polishing, was investigated by microscopic techniques (optical microscopy (OM), stereomicroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy with electronic dispersion spectroscopy (SEM-EDS), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Raman spectroscopy, and gas-chromatography with mass spectrometry (GC-MS) in good agreement with data from the literature. The potential result of this study is the identification and quantification of the metallic soap generated as a white deposit (probably salts, a kind of white efflorescence), from the binding medium of the metal carboxylate ionomer, by the crystallization of saturated fatty acids, through polymerization in oil. Six pigments (calcite, lithopone, carbon black, red ochre, vermilion, and ultramarine), present in the sublayers of the samples were identified.