Slice of History - New Insight on Old Masters

JPL’s image processing team has always had expertise far beyond history-making photos of space; ancient Mayan canals, sunken galleons, and the Shroud of Turin were already highlights of the team’s accomplishments, but in July 1981, exploration of imaging another great work of art was added to the list: a Van Dyke.

Investigation of underlying artworks was just one facet of a Caltech President’s Fund project in the early 1980s to find how NASA and JPL expertise may benefit the study and preservation of master artworks. Headed by Jim Druzik of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and the Norton Simon Museum - along with Don Lynn, Dave Glackin, and Raim Quiros of JPL - the goal of this project was to investigate techniques useful to museum curators and collectors in analyzing and identifying objets d’art. Although X-ray was already a common technique employed by museums, the advanced computer technology available at JPL made it even more possible to reveal underlying paintings, artists’ preliminary sketches, and signatures more clearly, as was done on the Van Dyke painting pictured here.

This image represents the X-ray-viewable underlying painting of Van Dyke’s 17th century masterwork, “The Crucifixion,” which depicts two seated women at a table. Enhancement of the X-ray, by minimizing the overlying image and other distractions such as a grain pattern in the wood behind the canvas, helps to reveal intensity levels of grey to indicate contrast. X-ray fluorescence is also employed to help determine color in underlying paintings by determining the heavy element composition of pigments.

At the time of this project, these JPL technologies were applied to a quantitative comparison of two identical Degas bronzes. CL#25-4393

The content presented here should be viewed in the context of the time period. Our intent is to present the history of JPL in a factual manner that uses primary resources and historical context. We recognize that some information or images do not reflect the current values, policies, and mission of JPL.