Fig. 5: XRR, MA-XRF maps, and reconstruction of the underlying composition. | npj Heritage Science

Fig. 5: XRR, MA-XRF maps, and reconstruction of the underlying composition.

From: Towards a classification system for Modernist painters’ reworking practices illustrated by James Ensor’s revised paintings

Fig. 5

a Visible light photograph (VIS) of The Bourgeois Salon (1881, KMSKA), rotated −90°. Courtesy of Rik Klein Gotink, KMSKA. The yellow rectangle indicates the MA-XRF area for which the corresponding elemental maps are shown below. A virtual reconstruction of a part of the underlying composition was made based on XRR, IRP, and MA-XRF and plotted in white lines on the RGB image. A standing figure with a beard, hat, cape, and staff emerged from the combined imagery, receiving what appears to be an apple from a kneeling figure, with what might be a snake coiled around a tree branch. b XRR, courtesy of Adri Verburg, KMSKA. The yellow rectangles on the XRR indicate two detail areas shown underneath. Detail 1 highlights the bearded man wearing a hat. Detail 2 was processed with the Platypus software to enhance the details and contrast of the face of a second figure. c–e MA-XRF imaging: the elemental distribution images of manganese (Mn-K), mercury (Hg-L), and iron (Fe-K) reveal more details on the standing and kneeling figure.

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