ANALYTICAL STUDY OF PAINT LAYER IN MURAL PAINTING OF KRABIA SCHOOL (19th c.), CAIRO, EGYPT

Abstract

Krabia School was decorated with wall paintings which were applied at ceiling and walls of halls and rooms by oil techniques. The Krabia School is dating back to Khediew Ismail period (1875AD/1292Higri). These wall paintings suffered from several deterioration aspects such as flaking, powdering, cracking, discoloration, salt effects and covered with numerous of dirt, stains and insects remains. In this study painting technique has been examined by means of X-Ray diffraction (XRD), observation of samples by transmitted light optical microscopy (LOM), polarized microscope (PM), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) attached with EDX and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis to determine the origins of archaeological raw materials, ascertain the techniques that had been used to apply the plaster and the paint layers used in Egyptian wall paintings during the 19th century and to obtain chemical and physical information about ongoing changes. it was noted that the painting layer consist of two layers and the painter’s palette was made up of several pigments as zinc oxide, white titanium (TiO2), red lead (minium Pb3O4), mussicot PbO, barium sulfate (BaSO4), Hematite (Fe2O3), vanadium oxide and strontium sulfite SrSO4. In addition, some decay products, such as sodium chlorides and kaolinite were detected.