Visiting museums with a chemical lab: the European Mobile Laboratory experience

It is now commonly accepted that the understanding of the original materials composition and their alteration compounds represents an unavoidable step in the valorization and conservation of works of art. Through physical-chemical investigations of artworks, valuable information about their history, technique and conservation, can be obtained. Traditionally, diagnostics in cultural heritage was used to be performed on micro-samples taken from the work of art using chromatographic and/or spectroscopic techniques at chemical laboratories. The main shortcoming of this approach stays basically is the consideration that any work of art is a precious and unique object for which the sampling should be limited. These considerations have led, in recent years, to develop a non-invasive approach enabled by the use of the light, namely its broadest aspect of electromagnetic radiation, as a probe to investigate the materials of a work of art without any sampling. Born in 2004 in Italy within the European Project Eu-ARTECH, MoLab [1], which stands for Mobile Laboratory, represents the first example of mobile facility entirely devoted to the scientific study of European works of art. Capable of bringing 14 different analytical instrumentations and a team of expert researchers in situ, i.e. where an object needs to be characterized in its material composition, MoLab provides an unique multi-techniques approch. During the last decade it has operated in 21 European countries performing 61 interventions, selected by the committee in charge among 130 applications received, with the support of 25 operators and documented satisfaction of more than 260 scientists, curators and restorers who have required the accesses to the mobile facility. Within the European project CHARISMA, recently concluded, eight new portable and noninvasive instrumentation have been developed and made available to the infrastructure for next MoLab interventions in Italy and Europe.