VAN GOGH GLIMPSE
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12 WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG AUGUST 11, 2008 B Y COMBINING expertise in spectroscopy and art, researchers have reconstructed in unprec- edented detail a color portrait of a peas- ant woman hidden beneath Vincent van Gogh’s 1887 painting, “Patch of Grass” (Anal. Chem., DOI: 10.1021/ac800965g). The colorful new peek at van Gogh’s work was made possible by X-ray fluorescence maps that reflected dis- tributions of specific elements in the layers of paint. Materials engineer and art historian Joris Dik from Delft University of Technology, in the Netherlands, and coworkers analyzed the painting with an intense and highly focused beam of X-rays from a synchrotron source. Hidden details obscured beneath newer paintings can provide intimate insights into an artist’s cre- ative process, the authors write in their report. “Van Gogh would often reuse the canvas of an abandoned painting,” they note. “Patch of Grass” had previously been analyzed by infrared reflectography and X-ray absorbance, nondestructive techniques for imaging hidden paint layers. Those experiments found a shadowy head under the lush green landscape but didn’t reveal enough to learn more about the portrait. The European team scanned the painting with the synchrotron X-ray beam for two days. They then computationally extract- ed the fluorescence signatures of the paint’s elemental components and constructed maps of where they ap- peared on the canvas. The maps from two elements, mercury and antimony, corresponded to the head. Knowledge about pigments in use during van Gogh’s time helped the researchers digitally recon- struct the flesh tones in the painting. However, the authors note that their reconstruction misses some color components. The element-mapping method “represents a signifi- cant advance over the current protocol for imaging buried paint layers and is a welcome new tool for museum scien- tists,” says Jennifer Mass, senior scientist at the Winter- thur Museum’s Conservation Division, in Delaware. The technique is an excellent complement to a mu- seum’s toolkit, agrees Robert J. Koestler, director of the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum Conservation Insti- tute. “It gives you interesting glimpses into the way the artist worked,” he says.—CARMEN DRAHL In its effort to create a pharmaceutical business based on a network of collabo- rations, Eli Lilly & Co. is selling its Green- field, Ind., operations to Covance, the Princeton, N.J.-based drug development services firm. Covance will pay $50 million for the 450-acre lab site. It also gets a 10-year service agreement with Lilly worth $1.6 billion. The deal expands Covance’s re- sponsibilities for handling Lilly’s toxicol- ogy testing and early-stage drug clinical trials and for supporting its Phase II and III trials. In related moves, Lilly is transferring clinical trial monitoring in the U.S. and Puerto Rico to Quintiles, a pharmaceuti- cal services company, and U.S. data man- agement to the clinical research firm i3. The R&D restructuring is designed to increase productivity and reduce drug development costs. “These actions re- flect Lilly’s determination to take the necessary steps to compete in a very challenging marketplace,” Lilly CEO John Lechleiter says. As a result of the Covance deal, clini- cal trials at the Lilly Center for Medical Science at the Indiana University Medi- cal Center will be substantially reduced, and the Lilly Center will likely be closed. Its 48 employees will be able to apply for jobs within Lilly or receive severance packages. In total, the R&D changes will affect nearly 800 people. About 260 Greenfield employees will automatically be offered jobs with Covance, while another 225 will move to Lilly sites in Indianapolis. About 265 other employees can apply for about 100 jobs that Quintiles and i3 will create and another 136 at Lilly.—ANN THAYER PHARMACEUTICALS Lilly shifts R&D operations, selling some to Covance NEWS OF THE WEEK Composite image shows the portrait of a peasant woman hidden beneath Vincent van Gogh’s 1887 painting, “Patch of Grass.” VAN GOGH GLIMPSE SPECTROSCOPY: Powerful, focused X-ray beams reveal additional details of a master’s painting DELFT UNIV. OF TECH., ANTWERP UNIV., AND KRÖLLER-MÜLLER MUSEUM
Transcript of VAN GOGH GLIMPSE
12WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG AUGUST 11, 2008
BY COMBINING expertise in spectroscopy and art, researchers have reconstructed in unprec-
edented detail a color portrait of a peas-ant woman hidden beneath Vincent van Gogh’s 1887 painting, “Patch of Grass” (Anal. Chem., DOI: 10.1021/ac800965g).
The colorful new peek at van Gogh’s work was made possible by X-ray fluorescence maps that reflected dis-tributions of specific elements in the
layers of paint. Materials engineer and art historian Joris Dik from Delft University of Technology, in the Netherlands, and coworkers analyzed the painting with an intense and highly focused beam of X-rays from a synchrotron source.
Hidden details obscured beneath newer paintings can provide intimate insights into an artist’s cre-ative process, the authors write in their report. “Van
Gogh would often reuse the canvas of an abandoned painting,” they note. “Patch of Grass” had previously been analyzed by infrared reflectography and X-ray absorbance, nondestructive techniques for imaging hidden paint layers. Those experiments found a shadowy head under the lush green landscape but didn’t reveal enough to learn more about the portrait.
The European team scanned the painting with the synchrotron X-ray
beam for two days. They then computationally extract-ed the fluorescence signatures of the paint’s elemental components and constructed maps of where they ap-peared on the canvas. The maps from two elements, mercury and antimony, corresponded to the head.
Knowledge about pigments in use during van Gogh’s time helped the researchers digitally recon-struct the flesh tones in the painting. However, the authors note that their reconstruction misses some color components.
The element-mapping method “represents a signifi-cant advance over the current protocol for imaging buried paint layers and is a welcome new tool for museum scien-tists,” says Jennifer Mass, senior scientist at the Winter-thur Museum’s Conservation Division, in Delaware.
The technique is an excellent complement to a mu-seum’s toolkit, agrees Robert J. Koestler, director of the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum Conservation Insti-tute. “It gives you interesting glimpses into the way the artist worked,” he says.—CARMEN DRAHL
In its effort to create a pharmaceutical business based on a network of collabo-rations, Eli Lilly & Co. is selling its Green-field, Ind., operations to Covance, the Princeton, N.J.-based drug development services firm.
Covance will pay $50 million for the 450-acre lab site. It also gets a 10-year service agreement with Lilly worth $1.6 billion. The deal expands Covance’s re-sponsibilities for handling Lilly’s toxicol-ogy testing and early-stage drug clinical trials and for supporting its Phase II and III trials.
In related moves, Lilly is transferring clinical trial monitoring in the U.S. and Puerto Rico to Quintiles, a pharmaceuti-cal services company, and U.S. data man-agement to the clinical research firm i3.
The R&D restructuring is designed to increase productivity and reduce drug development costs. “These actions re-flect Lilly’s determination to take the necessary steps to compete in a very challenging marketplace,” Lilly CEO John Lechleiter says.
As a result of the Covance deal, clini-cal trials at the Lilly Center for Medical
Science at the Indiana University Medi-cal Center will be substantially reduced, and the Lilly Center will likely be closed. Its 48 employees will be able to apply for jobs within Lilly or receive severance packages.
In total, the R&D changes will affect nearly 800 people. About 260 Greenfield employees will automatically be offered jobs with Covance, while another 225 will move to Lilly sites in Indianapolis. About 265 other employees can apply for about 100 jobs that Quintiles and i3 will create and another 136 at Lilly.—ANN THAYER
PHARMACEUTICALS Lilly shifts R&D operations, selling some to Covance
NEWS OF THE WEEK
Composite image shows the portrait of a peasant woman hidden beneath Vincent van Gogh’s 1887 painting, “Patch of Grass.”
VAN GOGH GLIMPSESPECTROSCOPY: Powerful, focused
X-ray beams reveal additional details of a master’s painting
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