Pigments and Pictorial Style Used in the Artworks of the Romanian Painter Theodor Aman

This work presents the first in-depth investigation of Theodor Aman’s paintings that focuses on three of his heritage artworks: “Hora de peste Olt” (1866), “Teleleice în Harem” (1879), and “Regimul vechi” (1881), and that relies on both elemental and spectroscopic analytical techniques. Non-destructive Raman spectroscopy was employed on all three works of art to identify the pigments used by the Romanian master. In addition, micro-samples were available from “Hora de peste Olt” and “Teleleice în Harem”, which were further analyzed using XRD, micro-Raman, ATR-FTIR, and SEM-EDS techniques to provide complementary information on the pigments. SEM-EDS was also applied to study the structure of the preparation layers. The analyses revealed significant differences between the artworks in terms of both the pigments employed and the preparation of the canvas, suggesting that the earlier artwork belongs to one creative phase, while the newer pieces can be attributed to a later phase in the artist’s career.