Five centuries later, science reveals why the great masters of the Renaissance, such as Leonardo and Botticelli, They added egg yolk to their paintings in oil
Laboratory experiments show that proteins used as additives protect the paintings from yellowing, humidity and the formation of cracks during drying.
The discovery, which will help the conservation of the works, was published in 2023 in the journal Nature Communications by an international group of experts that has the University of Pisa at the forefront, with the Institute of Chemistry of Organometallic Compounds of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) and the Interuniversity Consortium for Materials Science and Technology (Instm) of Florence.
Five centuries later, science found the product that the painter used to protect his works from yellowing, humidity and the formation of cracks (AFP).«Until now, scientific research on paintings was mostly aimed at identifying the materials used by painters, but this is not enough to understand the motivations behind artistic practice,» said Ilaria Bonaduce, associate professor at the Department of Chemistry at the University of Pisa, where a research group dedicated to cultural heritage has been working for more than 20 years.
The «magic» product
This time, one practice in particular ended up under scrutiny by researchers, that of adding egg yolk in oil paint, which was used by many famous painters: not only the great masters of the Italian Renaissance, but also artists such as Albrecht Dürer.
«In the laboratory we prepare some paintings with the addition of yolk and we spread them out to study their chemical and physical behavior (Bonaduce stated), in an attempt to understand the reasons that motivated this choice by the artists.»
«The Virgin of the Rocks» at the Louvre. The egg proteins form a thin layer that covers the pigment particles and prevents the absorption of environmental humidity.The results of the analyzes (carried out with rheology techniques, differential scanning calorimetry, thermogravimetry and analytical pyrolysis coupled to mass spectrometry) demonstrated that egg proteins form a thin layer which covers the pigment particles and prevents the absorption of environmental humidity.
In addition, the yolk makes the color mixture more consistent, prevents the formation of small cracks during drying and, with its antioxidant substances, prevents the yellowing of the pigments.
«Now we continue working with other analytical techniques to investigate the microstructure, and then move on to the study of famous paintings,» Bonaduce added.
«Examples of the ‘Lamentation over the Dead Christ with Saints Jerome, Paul and Peter’ by Sandro Botticelli, preserved in Munich, are already available, but we will also work on other works by Titian and Ghirlandaio.»
ANSA Agency.
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