X-ray Imaging of Art Objects at the Madison Accelerator Laboratory

 

Principal Investigator:
Dr. Harold Butner, Associate Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy/JMU

Co-Principal Investigator:
Dr. Scottie Pendleton, MAL Technical Coordinator & Laboratory Manager/JMU

Internal Collaborator:
Virginia “Ginny” Soenksen, Director of the Madison Art Collection & Lisanby Museum/JMU

External Collaborator:
Dr. Dan Boye, Professor, Department of Physics/Davidson College, North Carolina

 X-ray imaging allows one to examine the interior of an object, looking for features that might have been hidden by surface paint or buried in the interior. 

The Madison Accelerator Laboratory (MAL) has a repurposed X-ray imager, which does traditional 2-D X-ray imaging, similar to what you might get from a typical medical X-ray. We can adjust the energy from 40 kV to 140 kV as needed to get high quality images. However, 3-D X-ray imaging can provide a much richer view of the object’s interior since you can rotate the image. Creating 3-D X-ray images requires taking the X-rays from a variety of angles and then combining the images in software. To do 3-D imaging, MAL acquired a system from Digitome. The Digitome system is designed to adapt to existing X-ray facilities, and so provides true 3-D volumetric imaging. With this system, we take typically 8 to 16 images at different angles to allow the software to create our 3-D data set. In contrast to typical 2-D imaging, the Digitome technology, after acquiring the input set of radiographs (X-ray images) from different perspectives, forms a 3-D image dataset. The resulting dataset can be easily manipulated by a variety of image software, and will include accurate spatial mapping details of the object at the resolution of the detectors – typically of order 0.1 mm (or about 0.0040 inches) n all three dimensions. Having the ability to probe an object at that level of detail allows, for example, scholars to better understand how a painting might change from the starting sketch to the finished work or to look under aged and darkened varnishes and visualize the original colors and patterns.

 We feature below a few examples, as good cases in point, where we have used the MAL X-ray imaging facility, with and without the Digitome system, to study art objects – Courtesy of the Madison Art Collection.

Roman Coins

Examined at MAL (05/15/18) by Dr. Dan Boye, Dr. Anthony Kuchera, and undergraduate Carl Sukow/Davidson College in collaboration with MAL local team during the commissioning of the X-ray imaging facility

 

 

Mesoamerican Figure

Examined at MAL (05/15/18) by Dr. Dan Boye, Dr. Anthony Kuchera, and undergraduate Carl Sukow/Davidson College in collaboration with MAL local team during the commissioning of the X-ray imaging facility.

 

 

Russian Icon of The Beheading of John the Baptist

Examined at MAL (05/15/18) by Dr. Dan Boye, Dr. Anthony Kuchera, and undergraduate Carl Sukow/Davidson College in collaboration with MAL local team during the commissioning of the X-ray imaging facility

 

Shintou Shrine Statue of a Deity

SHINTOU SHRINE STATUE OF A DEITY Examined at MAL (11/10/21) by JMU undergraduate Jacob Caldwell under supervision of Drs. Butner and Pendleton /Department of Physics and Astronomy

 

Sawfish Sword

Examined at MAL (11/10/21) by JMU undergraduate Jacob Caldwell under supervision of Drs. Butner and Pendleton /Department of Physics and Astronomy

Note: We are interested to understand how and why a piece of art was created. In this particular case what is the story of the sword? what was its purpose? – ceremonial? combat? tourism? We are intrigued that a very similar specimen is classified as weapon in a collection at the British Museum – work in progress to find more answers about the story of the sawfish sword from the Madison Art Collection.