Characterization of photoluminescent and Raman properties of ultramarine blue pigment variants with a novel multimodal approach

Abstract

Ultramarine Blue (UB) pigment, derived from lapis lazuli, holds a significant place in the history of late medieval and Renaissance Europe, owing to its unusually bright colour and stability. Its prohibitive price, which equalled that of gold, meant that it was only used by estimated artists. In this work we present a non-invasive, multimodal approach to the characterization of the photoluminescent properties of different variants of the pigment. The ultimate goal of this research is to propose a protocol for the identification of UB in artworks thanks to the combination of Raman spectroscopy and time resolved-photoluminescence spectroscopy and imaging.