30 June 2022, Lower Saxony, Brunswick: Painting conservator Hildegard Kaul looks at the X-ray image … [+]
London-based Dr. Jilleen Nadolny, Director of ArtDiscovery for more than 13 years, passed away on December 14, 2023 at the age of 59.
Nadolny was a pioneer in the field of technical art history, in which paintings are studied in an exacting, forensic manner to determine their authenticity and value. Microscopy and spectroscopy crack forgeries, uncovering mysteries of carbon dating and underpainting on canvasses concealed before the naked eye. She regularly noted in her bio that she specialized in polychromy—looking at pigments and their materials for anything out of the ordinary.
“Technical imaging reveals information about reused supports – a common forger’s trick is to make a painting look older by reusing earlier works – while other forms of analysis like radiocarbon dating allows us to discern a more precise provenance,” Nadolny told Lauren Robertson at The Analytical Scientist in 2020.
This holds great power in the art world, especially concerning authenticity. One 2022 article in The Treasure House Fair cited Nadolny telling of a Bellini painting, revealed under restoration through X-ray-like technology called transmitted IR and IRR scans. In another case, a would-be Titian was found to have a stamp originating it to the collection of King Charles I, found under a canvas lining. A third instance with IRR was a Kandinsky, found to have an underpinning that matched a published sketch.
Each of these attributions greatly enhanced the value of the works, determining their legacies as masterpieces. One John Constable attribution by Nadolny’s group increased the value from $5000 to $5 million, effectively overnight.
Although I cannot confirm who did the imaging for Christie’s, the famously controversial case of the authenticated Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci turned what was once an unremarkable and badly damaged wood panel into a $450 million cultural treasure. The restoration performed by Dianne Dwyer Modestini was essential, but so too was the revelation of an underpainting of pentimento using similar X-ray tech, thus believed to be by the artist’s hand.
As the world of forgery and art fraud continues to capture public interest, Nadolny’s work holds an important piece of the art crime puzzle.
Museum Ludwig, funded by the Russian Avant-Garde Research Project, employed Nadolny to examine 14 of an 100 painting forgery investigation, all of which were attributed to Mikhail Larionov and Natalia Goncharova from the Russian avant-garde. The 14 were confirmed, and the technology Nadolny used was then published for an exhibit created to educate viewers on techniques in 2021, which in Robertsons words were…”identifying pigments by Raman microscopy, elemental determination by SEM-EDX, and particle morphology by polarized light microscopy.”
Because this is art history, Nadolny was so much more than a scientist. She was an interdisciplinary researcher, linguist and educator. According to her self-published bios, Nadolny obtained a BFA from Pratt Institute, New York, before studying for a double MA degree in History of Art and Art Conservation at New York University. She completed a PhD in Technical Art History at the Courtauld Institute, London in 2000 and was an associate professor of conservation at the University of Oslo before founding her company in January 2010, Art Analysis and Research, later renamed ArtDiscovery. As a developing member of ICOM-CC Art Technological Source Research (ATSR) working group, she disseminated extensive material on conservation and its technology, including her own publications.
There is no Nobel Prize for art, but perhaps there should be. In a reputationally challenged industry of fakes and scammers, paving her own way by combining skills as a Renaissance woman was groundbreaking and changed the industry forever. The courage not just to do this work, but to publish it so others could learn, will always be Dr. Nadolny’s legacy. Her colleagues continue, as does the competition at Vasari-k.
“Through analysis we can learn about all aspects of the material object: condition, original materials and techniques, restoration history and physical alteration of materials, and even how the artist actually worked,” Nadolny told Robertson. “Many specialists, from art historians to conservators to lawyers arguing authenticity cases, will use our information – each in a different manner.”
Undoubtedly, Nadolny’s past has changed the future.
