Investigation on the hazing of a Brazilian contemporary painting

• The whitening in the painting “Incêndio” was caused by blooming.
• The efflorescence is almost entirely composed of palmitic acid.
• Different techniques used for the blooming analysis were compared.
• A better understanding of contemporary painting materials behavior was achieved.
• Available restoration methodologies and blooming mechanisms were discussed.

A whitish crystalline-like coating was observed on the surface of the painting “Incêndio”, 1990, produced by Emmanuel Nassar and awarded at the 6th Biennial of Cuenca. This work belongs to the Contemporary Art Museum of the University of São Paulo (MAC-USP) and such coating modified the artwork characteristics, causing an unpleasant effect and compromising its exhibition.The choice of the proper conservation and restoration strategies involves the understanding of the degradation process, demanding the identification of the chemical compounds formed on the painting surface, as well as of the other components in the painting.The results here obtained from Raman and optical microscopies, FTIR–ATR, SEM–EDS and GC–MS, revealed that the efflorescence chemical composition is almost only palmitic acid, with minor contents of stearic acid and their methyl esters, and that the paints are composed by chrome yellow, amorphous carbon and toluidine red pigment; an aluminum silicate filler in the black paint applied on the aluminum ground was also detected. Hierarchical Cluster Analyses (HCA) of the Raman spectra also revealed that the concentration of the efflorescence minor components depends on the paint composition.It was suggested, therefore, that the degradation process resulted from segregation and migration of mainly palmitic acid from the dried paints. Restoration methodologies used in similar cases, as well as factors that contribute to this process, were discussed.

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