“Well,” said Dad, “if the activation analysis method were workable, we might be able to prove if they were painted by Alfred Sisley. Meanwhile, until the method is really developed we don’t know if we can do it that way or not.”
“So what do we do now?” asked Martin.
“We’ll have to wait until scientists can thoroughly investigate this method and several others that they’re working on.”
“Other methods!” exclaimed Bill. “What other methods?”
“The Banks of the Oise”, a genuine painting by Alfred Sisley.
Other New Tools for Art Authentication
“There are several new tools that scientists are working on now,” said Dad. “These involve methods that have been developed by scientists for other purposes, but are now being explored for use in authenticating works of art.
“For example, in Los Angeles, the county museum purchased an instrument known as a Spark Source Mass Spectrometer. Like activation analysis, this instrument will also measure small traces of impurities, but they have just set that up and it will take them years to explore the use of it for the type of problem we have been discussing.
“X-ray diffraction is another method that has been around for quite awhile but hasn’t been used much for art identification until recently. With X-ray diffraction, samples of pigments can be identified by the pattern formed when X rays are bent by passing through the sample of pigment.”