Three Fragments of the "Mystic Capture of the Unicorn" Tapestry

Colburn, Kathrin

doi:10.1086/met.45.41558055

Cited by 1 publication

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“…Scientific analysis of tapestries has been used to study a work's historical context [24,26,27], trace the history of intervention and repair [28,29], study degradation of dyes and fibers [30,31], and provide insight into how a work may have originally appeared [32]. Thirty-seven samples of dyed wool of various colors were removed from across the Caesar tapestry and analyzed by LC-qToF-MS.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unraveling a Historical Mystery: Identification of a Lichen Dye Source in a Fifteenth Century Medieval Tapestry

Lackner,

Ferron,

Boustie

et al. 2024

Heritage

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As part of a long-term campaign to document, study, and conserve the Heroes tapestries from The Cloisters collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, organic colorant analysis of Julius Caesar (accession number 47.101.3) was performed. Analysis with liquid chromatography–quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC-qToF-MS) revealed the presence of several multiply chlorinated xanthones produced only by certain species of lichen. Various lichen dye sources have been documented in the literature for centuries and are classified as either ammonia fermentation method (AFM) or boiling water method (BWM) dyes based on their method of production. However, none of these known sources produce the distinctive metabolites present in the tapestry. LC-qToF-MS was also used to compare the chemical composition of the dyes in the tapestry with that of several species of crustose lichen. Lichen metabolites, including thiophanic acid and arthothelin, were definitively identified in the tapestry based on comparison with lichen xanthone standards and a reference of Lecanora sulphurata, confirming the presence of a lichen source. This finding marks the first time that lichen xanthones have been identified in a historic object and the first evidence that BWM lichen dyes may have been used prior to the eighteenth century.

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