. Discovery. Science. "ROYAL CHILD AT ; Fifteenthccntun- picture in the Loux-tt. certain rehgious establishment by a nun, it was thought to be more than likely that this kneeling praying lady with \Ahite cap and rosary was a portrait of the donor, added by a painter who came long after Engelbrechtsz. Dr. Heilbron radiographed the " Crucifixion," with the result predicted : beneath the clumsy addition was the original figure, that of a praying monk, in perfect harmony with the rest of the picture (Fig. 2). Apart from this revelation, radiography served the useful purp
. Discovery. Science. "ROYAL CHILD AT ; Fifteenthccntun- picture in the Loux-tt. certain rehgious establishment by a nun, it was thought to be more than likely that this kneeling praying lady with \Ahite cap and rosary was a portrait of the donor, added by a painter who came long after Engelbrechtsz. Dr. Heilbron radiographed the " Crucifixion," with the result predicted : beneath the clumsy addition was the original figure, that of a praying monk, in perfect harmony with the rest of the picture (Fig. 2). Apart from this revelation, radiography served the useful purpose of showing the artist's own brush-work before restoration and enabled this work, which unfortunately, as is the case with all very ancient pictures, had become indispensable, to be more skilfully restored to its present state, as shown by Fig. 3. W'orking in accordance with the indications given by Faber and Heilbron, and guided by his own great experience as a radiographer. Dr. Andre Cheron—to whom, let me say in passing, I am indebted for the illustrations accompanying these lines—has consider- ably advanced the science of the radiography of pictures. Here, in a few words, is the principle of his method ; I quote from his communication presented to the Academy of Sciences, at Paris, by Dr. Lippmann, at the sitting of January 3,1921: " \\'e know that the degree of transparency of bodies to X rays depends on the number and weight of the atoms of which they arc formed. Now. in the case of a picture, there are three things to be considered : the supjjort (canvas or panel of wood), the priming with which this support is covered, and finally the colours composing the picture. " The support is always very transparent, but canvas much more than wood. " As regards the priming, it appears to result from the documents we possess on the subject of the making of colours and the preparing of canvases and panels that the old painters primed their supports with a
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