Organic dyes in illuminated manuscripts: a unique cultural and historic record.

ABSTRACT: In this study, we successfully addressed the challenges posed by the identification of dyes in medieval illuminations. Brazilwood pigment lakes and orcein purple colours were unequivocally identified in illuminated manuscripts dated by art historians to be from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries and in the Fernão Vaz Dourado Atlas (sixteenth century). All three works were on a parchment support. This was possible by combining Raman microscopy and surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy with microspectrofluorimetry. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that brazilein, the main chromophore in brazilwood lake pigments, has been unequivocally identified by surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy in an illuminated work (the Dourado Atlas). Complementing this identification, throu

SUBMITTER: Melo MJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5095527 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature