Optical Methods for the Assessment of Transport and Age Induced Defects of Artwork

Introduction

Cultural awareness is supported by temporary exhibitions in museums. The subsequent increase of museum loan services manifests in a large number of art transportation. Despite modern packaging technologies, vibrations and environmental climate change can add up and damage the transported objects [1]. This results in a conflict between wanted mobility of artwork and the preservation of our cultural heritage. In traditional conservation techniques the evaluation and quantification of changes and defects results mostly from an optical and subjective assessment and comparison of the previous and the subsequent condition. Due to fast construction of exhibition sites, also experienced experts are not always able to distinguish a new defect from an old one or detect a defect expansion in an appropriate and objective way. Especially it is difficult to distinguish between damages due to natural aging and mechanical stress. Therefore, in recent years the necessity for modern inspection technologies to deal with those challenges has extremely increased. For example, in the framework of the MutiEncode-Project different holographic measurement techniques were combined to monitor the condition of an artwork [2, 3]. Transport damages have been investigated in the Vasari-Project [4] and in Stuttgart [5].