À propos des recherches chimiques effectuées en 1848 par Michel-Eugène Chevreul sur des fragments de peinture d’époque gallo-romaine

Résumé 0

In the nineteenth century, scientists like Chaptal, Davy, Chevreul, Berthelot, Dumas were consulted by historians and archaeologists on the chemical composition of ancient artworks. Most of these studies concerned antique jewels or metal implements alloys, but some of them were also devoted to Roman or Mediaeval wall paintings, since the excavations at Herculanum or Pompeïa had revealed the whole world over their antique treasures and had given rise to a keen interest in discovering painting materials or painting techniques used by the old masters.Still, art historians and archaeologists failed to agree about the painter's ancient techniques. On the one hand, the supporters of the «a secco» technique contended that an organic binding such as oil, wax or tempera had been used, while on the other hand, some thought it more likely that a simple and genuine «fresco» painting technique had been used. Since no solution seemed to appear, it is small wonder that the scientists' help was soon called upon; among them, Michel-Eugène Chevreul was regarded as a specialist of the colours science and as the pioneer of the chemistry of lipids.Chevreul published the results of his experiments on the Saint-Médard-des-Prés wall paintings about 150 years ago in the comptes-rendus of the French Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres.We therefore reinvestigate here these results from a historical point of view with an attempt at comparing them with our own experiments.