Analysis of South-Asian Shaman paintings at the national museum of Denmark

Raman spectroscopy is often used for the non‐destructive analysis of archaeological objects or artefacts. Recently, the use of mobile Raman instrumentation has become increasingly popular for in situ investigations. Moreover, in this work, direct Raman analysis was completed with Fourier‐transform infrared (FT‐IR) analysis and scanning electron microscopy–energy dispersive X‐ray spectroscopy (SEM–EDX). We used a dedicated mobile Raman instrument to perform direct analysis on a series of Shaman paintings on textile, which are part of the collection of the National Museum of Denmark. In general, relatively little attention has been given to the investigation of 19th or 20th Century artworks of Southeast Asian origin. The paintings under investigation depict Shaman gods and were previously dated between 1870 and 1950. The aim of this work was to obtain information on the materials that were applied and to narrow these dates, based on the artists' materials that could be identified. By using the combination of analytical techniques (Raman analysis with FT‐IR and SEM–EDX), it was possible to obtain information on inorganic and organic pigments, the binding medium and the canvas. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.