Non-destructive spectroscopic detection of cobalt(II) in paintings and glass

AbstractFrom classical times to the present day, pigments containing cobalt(II) have played an intermittent role. The most important cobalt blue pigments were smalt and Thenard's blue. In the present work, fibre optics reflectance spectroscopy (FORS) is proposed as a totally non-destructive method for the detection of cobalt(II) pigments in the visible and near infrared regions. This technique has been applied to the identification of cobalt(II) in a sixteenth-century wall painting and two fifteenth-century glass windows.