Complementary cross-section based protocol of investigation of polychrome samples of a 16th century Moravian Sculpture by optical, vibrational and mass spectrometric techniques

Until recently, the identification of proteinaceous binders contained in small samples taken from polychrome or painted works of art was very complicated and nearly impossible in the case of cross-section analyses. Therefore, the novelty of this paper is the complementary applications of several analytical techniques, such as optical microscopy (OM), nano-LC-ESI-Q-TOF and MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry, microRaman spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-ray analysis (SEM-EDX) directly on cross-sections. This approach is especially useful for this case as only few samples were available for binder and pigment identification and it allowed the preservation of the samples as cross-sections for further analyses.