The study of artistic bronzes by infrared thermography: A review

• Published in: Journal of cultural heritage Vol. 42; pp. 280 - 289
• Main Author: Orazi, Noemi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Masson SAS 01-03-2020
• Subjects: Bronze statues; Casting flaws; Infrared thermography; Insertions; Lost-wax casting; Thermal diffusivity; Infrared thermography; Thermal diffusivity; Bronze statues; Lost-wax casting; Insertions; Casting flaws
• ISSN: 1296-2074; 1778-3674
• DOI: 10.1016/j.culher.2019.08.005

•State of the art of thermographic applications to the study of bronzes.•Study of the main steps of the lost-wax casting process.•Use of passive and active thermography for the study of artistic bronzes.•Thermographic investigations of defects and repairs of artistic bronzes.•Thermographic analysis of the masterpieces of the bronze statuary of Rome.•Quantitative evaluations of the thermal properties of copper alloys.
The study of bronze statues obtained by the lost-wax casting method results of particular relevance from the artistic and historical points of view. In particular, the characterization of structural and subsurface elements of bronzes is very useful to gather insight concerning their preservation state and manufacturing process. For these purposes, infrared thermography has been successfully employed to investigate different kind of items of artistic bronzes, such as repairs, defects and inserts, providing also the possibility to perform the depth-resolved study of the observed subsurface features thanks to the possibility it also provides to evaluate the thermal transport properties of the investigated materials. In this work, the experimental configurations and the capabilities of such a technique have been reviewed. The state of the art of the results obtained by infrared thermography for the analysis of artistic bronzes is presented. It is thus shown that infrared thermography can be nowadays considered as a reliable and consolidated technique to map in a non-destructive way a wide spectrum of features of bronzes.