Commission Activities

When Science meets Art…
Professor Henk Schenk (1939-2023) - In Memoriam

The information about Professor Henk Schenk's death, which appeared on the Dutch Crystallographic Society website, was very sad news for crystallographers all over the world. Professor Schenk was an outstanding scientist, active not only in pure science but also in the application of scientific techniques in new fields. His role in the creation of the CrysAC Commission is an example of his wide interests. Below we want to show his help and engagement in setting up a new IUCr Commission – the Commission on Crystallography in Art and Cultural Heritage.

The full article continues here.

Top row, left to right: Henk Schenk at the IUCr Congress in Florence in 2005; Chairs and lecturers of MS 58 at the same Congress: Rossella Arletti, Eric Dooryhée, Salvatore Siano, Carlo Mealli, Giacomo Chiari, Henk Schenk and Veronika Šímová. Bottom row, left to right: Henk Schenk and Gilberto Artioli at the “X-ray and other techniques in investigations of the objects of cultural heritage” meeting in Krakow in 2012; at ECM30 in Basel in 2016: Koen Janssens, Wieslaw Lasocha and Henk Schenk.

7th CrysAC Workshop on 'Bio-apatite, Humans, Archaeology and Environment' - POSTPONED!

19 November, 2023, Benozyio Auditorium, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

Programme available here.

**UPDATE: The tragic and sad events in the Levant forced us to postpone the workshop, hoping for peaceful times. We discarded the idea of an on-line only workshop, because under the present situation most students and potential attendants will not be able to follow and participate in the workshop. We hope to be allowed to reschedule it for the next spring, following the same programme. We sincerely hope all of you will be able to contribute as well, supporting this international scientific forum as a small step towards peace and normal life. We'll send you possible dates as soon as possible.**

The 7th CrysAC Workshop on 'Bio-Apatite, humans, archaeology and environment' will take place on 19 November 2023 in the Benozyio Auditorium, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel. It will be followed the next day by a short local workshop on carbonates. This workshop invites scientists from research institutions, museums and conservation bodies to look at apatite from various points of view from mineralogy, structure, anthropology, archaeometry or possible nano-technology.

XXVI IUCr Congress in Melbourne 2023

The CrysAC Commission played an active role in the preparation of scientific programme of the XXVI IUCr Congress in Melbourne (22-29 August 2023), sponsoring two Keynote lectures provided by Dr Silvie Švarcová (ALMA, Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic; CrysAC member) and Dr Helen Green (University of Melbourne, Australia) and organising a micro-symposium on Crystallographic Approaches to Study Cultural Heritage + Artists Materials and their Spontaneous Degradation with invited lectures by Prof. Gilberto Arioli (University of Padova, Italy; CrysAC chair) and Dr Filomena Salvemini (ANSTO, Australia). Four oral presentations and five poster contributions were selected for the CrysAC session.

Dr Silvie Švarcová (ALMA, Institute of Inorganic Chemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences) dedicated her keynote lecture (August 23, 2023) to the 20th anniversary of laboratory X-ray powder micro-diffraction in the ALMA lab, showing numerous examples of succesful application of the technique in the study of provenance and degradation of painting materials.

Dr Helen Green (School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Australia) presented in her keynote lecture (August 24, 2023) results of the extensive research of Australian rock art.

The microsymposium on Crystallographic Approaches to Study Cultural Heritage + Artists Materials and their Spontaneous Degradation (August 24, 2023) chaired by Dr Silvie Švarcová (ALMA, Czech Academy of Sciences) offered varied topics from cultural heritage, including metal objects, paintings, ancient ceramics, as well as techniques such as laboratory and in-situ XRPD, neutron diffraction, tomography or large-scale XRF mapping.

Lectures of the microsymposium

Prof. Giberto Artioli (University of Padova, Italy) – invited lecture

“The tin content of lead inclusions in ancient tin-bronze artefacts: A time-dependent process?”

Dr Filomena Florentina Salvemini (ANSTO, Australia) – invited lecture

“Metallurgy in Antiquity: a new insight with neutrons”

Prof. Koen Janssens (University of Antwerpen, Belgium)

“Combining microscopic and macroscopic X-ray fluorescence and X-ray powder diffraction mapping for highly specific imaging of degradation phenomena in historical paintings”

Dr Marek Kotrlý (Institute of Criminalistics, Czech Republic)

“New robotic tools for multimodal, non-destructive analysis and characterization of 2D and 3D objects”

Prof. Takashi Kamiyama (Institute of High Energy Physics, CAS, China)

“The Jomon Pottery from Fukushima 5000 years ago”

Prof. N. Benali-Cherif (Algerian Academy of Sciences and Technologies, Algeria) - cancelled

“Teaching crystallography through beauty of symmetries of Algerian old buildings, carpets and jewels”

Speakers of the CrysAC microsymposium, from left to right: Prof. Koen Janssens, Dr Silvie Švarcová (chair), Prof. Gilberto Artioli, Dr Filomena Florentina Salvemini, Dr Marek Kotrlý, Prof. Takashi Kamiyama.

The 6th CrysAC workshop on “Micro- and nano-diffraction for cultural heritage”

The 6th CrysAC workshop organised by Gilberto Artioli (University of Padova, Italy, chair of CrysAC) and Partha Pratim Das (Nanomegas, Brussel, Belgium) took place on the 23rd August 2022 as a satellite meeting of the 33rd European Crystallographic Meeting, France. The workshop was hosted by Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France (C2RMF) in Palais du Louvre, Paris. In keeping with the terms of reference of the Commission, the CrysAC workshop on "Micro- and nano-diffraction for cultural heritage" was within the series of one-day workshops organized by the IUCr Commission on Crystallography in Art and Cultural Heritage, and aimed to stimulate knowledge exchange between crystallographers and researchers interested in Cultural Heritage investigations. Different communities were invited to present reviews of established research, recent results and envisaged trends in key areas of Archaeometry and Conservation Science.

The workshop invited scientists from research institutions, museums, and conservation bodies, in order to illustrate state-of-the-art applications of diffraction techniques in the sub-micron spatial resolution. Recent instrumental and methodological advances, mainly based on electron diffraction and synchrotron radiation, open novel fields of research on cultural heritage materials, to understand chemico-physical processes and structural transformations with unprecedented spatial resolutions. After the workshop, the participants could attend a unique excursion guided by Victor Etgens, the head of C2RMF, into the C2RMF laboratories in the basement of the Louvre palace.

33rd ECM in Versailles, France

The microsymposium MS43 on “Crystallography for cultural heritage materials” took place on August 27, 2022 within the programme of the 33rd ECM in Versailles, France. The session, co-chaired by Silvie Švarcová (ALMA Laboratory, Czech Republic, CrysAC) and Victor Etgens (C2RMF, France; previously IPANEMA, France), was opened by the invited lecture by Kirsten M. Ø. Jensen (University of Copenhagen, Denmark) dedicated to the application of computed tomography Pair Distribution Function analysis for the characterisation of heterogeneous phases in wood from the Mary Rose, the famous flagship of Henry VIII. The other contribution dealt with study of degradation phenomena in paintings, characterisation of mediaeval brocade patterns and study of ancient pottery and its contemporary replica.

In the closing ceremony, Gilberto Artioli propagated the forthcoming 34th ECM and 18th EPDIC which both will take place in Padova, Italy, on the 26-31 August 2024 and 30 August – 2 September 2024, respectively.

Invited lectures

International Symposium “Crossroads: data-driven talks on ancient materiality at the interface of archeology, science and engineering”, Turin, Italy, 3 June 2022

Gilberto Artioli delivered an invited seminar titled: “An Integrated Diagnostic and Valorization Project for UNESCO Sites: The Case of the Terme del Sarno, Pompei”, at the International Symposium “Crossroads: data-driven talks on ancient materiality at the interface of archeology, science and engineering”. Museo Egizio, Torino, Italy, 3 June 2022.

School of XFEL and Synchrotron Radiation Users, 6-10 November 2023, Liptovský Ján, Slovakia

Silvie Švarcová (ALMA Laboratory, Czech Republic, CrysAC) delivered an invited lecture “XRPD and EDS for analysis of paintings” at the international School of XFEL and Synchrotron Radiation Users.

CrysAC members’ activities

Workshops, trainings, mobility and outreach

First training courses for applications of synchrotron light in archaeology and cultural heritage studies, Istanbul, Turkey, 18-19 March 2023

This event was organized by TENMAK (Türkiye Enerji, Nükleer ve Maden Araştırma Kurumu: Turkish Energy, Nuclear and Mining Research Council). https://www.tenmak.gov.tr/giris-introduction.html The audience was composed of about 100 persons (half on site, half remote), most of them Turkish archaeologists and heritage actors. The program encompassed presentations from beamline staff (SESAME, ELETTRA, ESRF) and from senior archaeologists and expert synchrotron radiation users. Time was also dedicated to train future users in elaborating synchrotron radiation experiments and writing proposals. The main objective was to make heritage actors from Turkey more aware about capabilities offered by synchrotron radiation facilities.

The Historical Materials BAG 2-day event, ESRF, Grenoble, France, 5-6 December 2022

Following the workshop organized in January 2020 at ESRF for the cultural and natural heritage community, a project of “historical materials BAG” access was discussed (https://www.esrf.fr/BAG/HG172). After one year of operation, it was important to get scientific feedback from the BAG partners and to discuss ways to further improve this process. The event was a clear success. 23 persons attended it, most of them PhD students from all over Europe. The first day was dedicated to scientific presentations (PhD students and beamline scientists). On the second day, training on the FullProf software was proposed (course given by Gilles Wallez, Chimie Paris) and was very well received by the participants.

The exhibition “Rises and Falls of Portrait Miniature”, Chomutov, Czech Republic, 25 June – 24 September 2022

The event organised by the ALMA Laboratory, Czech Republic, presented to the public results of a scientific project focusing on non-destructive analysis of portrait miniatures from the Czech collections. The impact of the detailed material investigation on authentication of these subtle pieces of arts was documented by numerous examples. Within the exhibition, an interactive workshop demostrating analytical techniques took place. An illustrative film “Technique and history of miniature paintings” complementing the exhibition is available: https://www.iic.cas.cz/homepage/videa/

ERASMUS+ project 'Building Power Skills through ART'

Alicia Rafalska of CrysAC participated in the Erasmus Action: Cooperation partnerships in higher education.

Symposia and conferences

43rd International Symposium on Archaeometry, Lisbon, Portugal, 16-20 May 2022

Several contributions from CrysAC members were presented at the 43rd International Symposium on Archaeometry (ISA 2020/2022) held in Lisbon on May 16-20, 2022 (https://www.isa2020-lisboa.pt). This is a very important meeting for the archaeometric community, involving both archaeology and conservation.

Molecular Transformations in Oil Paint, 16-17 June, Paris, France

Silvie Švarcová (ALMA Labortaory, Czech Republic, CrysAC) delivered a lecture, and Marine Cotte (ESRF, France, CrysAC), Frederik Vanmeert (University of Atwerpen, Belgium - Koen Janssens’ group) and their co-workers presented the activities of the Historical Materials BAG and numerous results from the investigation of Dutch painted artworks.

Structure 2022 - The conference of the Czech and Slovak Crystallographic Association (CSCA) and regional IUCr committee, 20-23 June 2022, Tábor, Czech Republic

Silvie Švarcová (ALMA Laboratory, Czech Republic, CrysAC) presented the lecture “XRPD as a powerful tool for study of painted artworks” and attended the assembly of CSCA.

Conference “Quasicrystals: State of the art and outlooks”, 18 November 2022, Accademia dei Lincei, Rome, Italy

Emil Makovicky presented a lecture at the Quasicrystals conference in Rome, entitled “Quasicrystals and Art: Interesting new facts”.

Preparation of sessions at the 26th Congress and General Assembly of the IUCr, Melbourne 2023

The Commission at present is actively involved in the organization of microsymposia and keynotes at the next (26th) Congress and General Assembly of the International Union of Crystallography, 22–29 August 2023, Melbourne, Australia. 

XXV IUCr Congress in Prague 2021

The CrysAC commission played an active role at the IUCr Congress in Prague which was for the first time in a hybrid form, combining both on-site and remote attendance. The chair of the commission, Gilberto Artioli, provided online an engaging and inspiring Keynote Lecture "Crystallography and cultural heritage – On beauty, science, and passion". The programme of both microsymposia organised by the commission attracted a wide audience.

The MS-78 "Science meets art: X-ray spectrometry and X-ray diffraction in art and archaeology", co-chaired by Gilberto Artioli (remote) and Sebastian Bette (on-site), was opened by an invited lecture by Katrien Keune dedicated to Operation Night Watch – the extensive investigation of Rembrandt’s masterpiece occurring in the exposition in Rijksmuseum Amsterdam.

The MS-85 "Science meets art: Crystallography and cultural heritage", chaired by Petr Bezdička (on-site), was opened by the invited lecture by Koen Janssens who presented the potential of MA-XRD in the fingerprinting of natural ultramarine based on the non-invasive identification of mineral phases forming the pigment.

In both microsymposia, the lecturers illustrated the importance of X-ray as well as electron diffraction techniques for the identification of materials in artworks (Christoph Berthold, Chiaramaria Stanii, Partha Pratim Das, Eva Kočí) as well as for description of secondary degradation products affecting the artworks' stability and appearance (Silvie Švarcová, Sebastian Bette). At the frontier between archaeometry and forensic science was the contribution by Hannah Louise Cross about the effects of soft tissues on crystallographic changes to the bone mineral hydroxyapatite. Symmetry in architecture, Islamic building ornaments and ivory puzzle balls was reflected in interesting lectures provided by Arie van der Lee, Peter Moeck and Grygoriy Dmytriv.

The presentations are accessible for registered participants at: IUCr 2021 Conference Agenda.

Preparation of the 6th CrysAC workshop and a microsymposium for the 33rd ECM in Versailles (August 2022)

The 6th CrysAC Workshop on "Micro- and nano-diffraction for cultural heritage" is being planned to take place as a satellite action of the 33rd European Crystallographic Meeting (Versailles, France, 23-27 August 2022). It will focus on advanced techniques for single-crystal diffraction in the micro-nano regimes. It will mainly involve state of the art techniques based on synchrotron radiation and the application of ED/SPED techniques on materials of interest for cultural heritage.

The microsymposium #43 on "Crystallography for cultural heritage materials" at the 33rd ECM in Versailles is in preparation. The section will be chaired by Dr Victor Etgens (IPANEMA, France) and Dr Silvie Švarcová (ALMA Laboratory, Czech Republic).

Invited lectures

Gilberto Artioli delivered a keynote lecture on "The contribution of materials analysis to archaeological research" at the School of advanced training on "Analysis of materials in archaeology and cultural heritage", University of Trento (February 2020).

Gilberto Artioli delivered an invited lecture at the "Raw Materials University Day" on "Alpine copper: exploitation since prehistory to recent times", Università di Trento-KIC Raw Materials (November 2020). The video is available here.

CrysAC members’ activities

Cultural and Natural Heritage Workshop

Marine Cotte organized the workshop "Cultural and Natural Heritage Workshop", at ESRF (Grenoble, France, 22-24 January 2020). The following CrysAC members and consultants contributed:

1. Basic principles of X-ray spectroscopy (M. Cotte)
2. Scopes and objectives of the workshop (M. Cotte)
3. Cultural Heritage & Synchrotron Radiation: Quo Vadis? (Koen Janssens)
4. Complementary use of SR and neutrons for heritage study at NRC "Kurchatov institute" (Elena Tereschenko)

The presentations and other photos are available here.

Chemistry of Lead in Oil Paintings

Rijksmuseum Science Department hosted a workshop on the "Chemistry of Lead in Oil Paintings" (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 20-21 February 2020). The following CrysAC members and consultants contributed:

1. Tracking the chemical fate of Pb-containing pigments in works of art at different length and time scales (Koen Janssens)
2. The Reactions of PbO with Oil Studied with X-ray and infrared Microscopy (Marine Cotte)
3. The Reactivity of Lead-Based Pigments versus the Reactivity of Oils in Model Paints (Silvie Švarcová)

Other activities

Gilberto Artioli delivered a seminar on "Mineralogy, crystallography, art and archaeology: Science and passion" within the frame of "UniPadova Incontra" for high school students (Piazzola sul Brenta, February 2020).

Sebastian Bette delivered a seminar on "Calcium Acetate Hydrates: Simple Salts with Surprisingly Complex Crystal Structures" at the Joint Polish-German Crystallographic Meeting in Wroclaw (25th February 2020)

Gilberto Artioli delivered a seminar at the National Academy on "Mineralogy and cultural heritage: fatal attraction" (Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Roma, December 2020). www.lincei.it/it/videoteca/11122020-la-mineralogia-ed-i-beni-culturali-video

The 5th CrysAC Workshop – The crystallography of ancient metals and metal corrosion

In 2019 the chair of the Commission Gilberto Artioli with Klaudia Hradil (from the Organizing Committee of 32nd ECM) prepared the 5th CrysAC workshop on "The crystallography of ancient metals and metal corrosion". It was held in Vienna on 17 August 2019.

In keeping with the terms of reference of the Commission, this CrysAC workshop was within the series of one-day workshops organized by the IUCr Commission on Crystallography in Art and Cultural Heritage, aimed at stimulating knowledge exchange between crystallographers and researchers interested in Cultural Heritage investigations. Different communities are invited to present reviews of established research, recent results and envisaged trends in key areas of Archaeometry and Conservation Science.

The 5th workshop invited scientists from research institutions, museums, and conservation bodies, in order to illustrate state-of-the-art applications of materials science in the field of archaeometallurgy, diagnostics and conservation of metals, authentication, corrosion processes, and other themes related to ancient metals and metallurgy.

The programme of the workshop is here.

During ECM32 in Vienna, Prof. Koen Janssens (University of Antwerp, Belgium) delivered a Public Lecture: "Examining Old Paintings with New X-Ray Methods: A Fresh Look at and below the Surface".

Preparation of the scientific programme for the 25th IUCr Congress in Prague in 2020

In May 2019, Prof. Jose-Miguel Delgado and Dr Petr Bezdička participated in the meeting "Current trends and future of Crystallography in Chemistry, Physics, Biology and Materials Science" as representatives of the CrysAC Commission. This workshop was organized to prepare the scientific programme of the 25th General Assembly and Congress of the IUCr in August 2020 in Prague. As a result, it was decided that the CrysAC Commission would organize (1) or co-organize (2) the following microsymposia at the 25th IUCr congress:

1. "Global cultural heritage challenges and crystallography: Where do we stand?" co-chaired by Dr Alicja Rafalska-Łasocha
2. "X-ray spectrometry and X-ray diffraction in art and archaeology", co-chaired by Dr Petr Bezdička
3. "Science meets art: Crystallography and cultural heritage"

Invited lectures

Prof. Gilberto Artioli delivered an invited talk at the Mineralogical Society of America Centennial (1919-2019) Symposium, on "Modern mineralogy and ancient pots: The archaeometry of ceramics" (Carnegie Institution for Science Building, Washington, DC, June 20-21, 2019). The video is available here:

Dr Petr Bezdička presented an invited talk "The role of laboratory X-ray diffraction techniques in the provenance analysis of historical paintings" at the Annual meeting of the Working Group Archaeometry of the German Chemical Society on "Archäometrie und Denkmalpflege 2019" (Vienna, Austria, September 2019). Programme and extended abstracts are available here: Metalla_Jahrestagung_2019_Sonderheft_9.pdf

CrysAC members’ activities

Dr Elena Thereschenko delivered a seminar on "The principle of the sciences convergence in the museum practice" in the framework of the International Festival "Intermuseum" (May 2019, Moscow, Russia).

Prof. Gilberto Artioli delivered a seminar on "Blue colour from lapis lazuli to Klein", Open Workshop "Colour in science", Dipartimento di Beni Culturali, Università di Padova (June 2019).

Dr Elena Thereschenko organized a Micro-symposium on "Natural Sciences for the Study of Cultural Heritage" in the framework of the 7th European Conference on Neutron Scattering ECNS 2019 (July 2019, St Petersburg, Russia).

Dr. Elena Thereschenko chaired the Session "Interdisciplinary research and natural history research: new opportunities for historians" at the First International St Petersburg Historical Forum (October 2019, St Petersburg, Russia).

Dr Petr Bezdička took part in the organization of the 7th interdisciplinary ALMA conference "The Colour Theme" focused on research, technology, history and conservation/restoration of fine art (16–18 October 2019, Bratislava, Slovakia).