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This volume of the National Gallery Technical Bulletin begins with the results of recent technical investigations into an important group of seven early works by Raphael in the Gallery's collection. This study forms a valuable supplement to the exhibition Raphael: From Urbino to Rome (20 October 2004-16 January 2005) and its catalogue.

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  Raphael's Early Work in the National Gallery: Paintings before Rome
  1.97 MB
  Ashok Roy, Marika Spring and Carol Plazzotta

  Other articles in the National Gallery Technical Bulletin: Volume 25

  Polidoro da Caravaggio's Way to Calvary: Technique, Style and Function
  Larry Keith, Minna Moore Ede and Carol Plazzotta

  Polidoro da Caravaggio's Way to Calvary is the first work firmly attributed to Raphael's pupil to have entered the National Gallery's Collection. Close examination of Polidoro's materials and techniques for this important new acquisition, one of the earliest surviving examples of an Italian oil sketch, or bozzetto, helps place the artist's methods within the context of contemporary practice, and highlights the origins and influences underlying his painterly innovation.

  Nicolas Lancret's Four Times of Day
  Paul Ackroyd, Ashok Roy and Humphrey Wine

  Nicolas Lancret's series on copper panel, The Four Times of Day, has recently been the subject of thorough technical investigation. This article draws together the proceeds of this research and reproduces the cleaned and restored pictures for the first time. Lancret made a number of alterations to the compositions as he worked, and here the studies on which the final painted figures are based are shown with a series of engravings made soon after the paintings were exhibited at the Paris Salon in September 1739.

  The Effects of Relative Humidity on Artist' Pigments
  Jo Kirby and David Saunders

  In a series of experiments, a range of artists' pigments found in easel paintings bound in different media were exposed to light under varying conditions of relative humidity and the resultant colour changes observed. The effects of excluding light and the influence of the binding medium were also investigated. The experiments show the results derived from a broad range of pigments, and will be of particular interest to conservators.

  Fading and Colour Change of Prussian Blue: Methods of Manufacture and the Influence of Extenders
  Jo Kirby and David Saunders

  Prussian blue can be described as the first of the modern, totally synthetic pigments, having been discovered by chance in the conduct of a deliberate chemical reaction; it has no natural equivalent. First prepared around 1704 by Diesbach in Berlin, its susceptibility to colour change became known quite soon afterwards. This extensive discussion of the pigment's preparation, constitution, its use in paintings and tendency to colour change, records the results of experiments by the National Gallery's Scientific Department concerning over twenty varieties of the pigment, both historical and modern.

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  All images © The National Gallery unless otherwise indicated. Copyright restrictions prevent the display of some non-National Gallery images on screen. Images may not be reproduced without permission.