Role of Instrumental and Technological Examination in the Attribution of Paintings (with Reference to Our Lady of Vladimir from the Chelyabinsk Collection)

This article is devoted to a small Nevyansk icon from the Chelyabinsk State Museum of Fine Arts depicting the Mother of God. As part of the scholarly research carried out by the State Research Institute for Restoration (Moscow), a technological analysis of the icon was conducted to clarify its attribution. The author reveals features of the material and structural complex, the chemical composition of paints and prime, the state of preservation, traces of later “restoration” as well as modern restoration interventions. A number of signs make it possible to attribute the icon to the works of the first half of the eighteenth century painted by Old Believers on the territory of Ural Demidov factories: the presence of anhydrite (anhydrous gypsum) as a filler of the prime (the author assumes that it is a feature of Nevyansk icons because there are deposits of anhydrite in the Urals), blue pigments of the author’s paints (the use of synthetic azurite and the absence of Prussian blue are characteristics of icons of this period), and, most importantly — is the use of the same art technic and artistic materials as in the earliest dated Nevyansk icon Our Lady of Egypt (1734) from the Museum “Nevyansk Icon” in Ekaterinburg. Thus, the research carried out confirms the new attribution of the Our Lady of Vladimir icon proposed by Yevgeny Roizman. The technical and technological features revealed completely disprove its previous dating to the nineteenth century and put it on a par with works of the first generation of local masters. Thus, the article emphasises the important role of the study of artistic materials and techniques in the attribution of paintings.