The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry hosts guest speaker Kristin Wustholz, Margaret Hamilton Professor & Chair of Chemistry at William & Mary. Her presentation will be on the topic of "Revealing the Fugitive Palette in Art using Surface-Enhanced or Single-Molecule Spectroscopy."
The seminar will be preceded by a reception at 4:30 p.m. in the Anderson Lounge.
Sponsored by the Ray Alte Blumeno Lectureship Fund
--
Abstract:
Identifying “fugitive” organic colorants in art is important and challenging. This talk presents and compares two state-of-the-art approaches, surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and blink-based multiplexing (BBM), and how these studies inform artists’ and conservation choices. Recent SERS studies of 18th-c. oil paintings at the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg made by C.W. Peale, Joshua Reynolds, and Joshua Johnson are discussed. We also recently developed BBM, which harnesses the intrinsic fluctuations in fluorescence over time of a single molecule (blinking) as a barcode for identification. Our studies demonstrate BBM can identify individual molecules of modern artists’ dyes and inks.
Open to all members of the public
