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Bomb 14C on paper and detection of the Forged Paintings of T’ang Haywen

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 October 2019

Irka Hajdas*
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Ion Beam Physics, ETH Zurich, Otto-Stern-Weg 5, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland
Philippe Koutouzis
Affiliation:
T’ang Haywen Archives 曾海文檔案庫, 28 Bonham Strand, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong, SAR, China
Kate Tai
Affiliation:
T’ang Haywen Archives 曾海文檔案庫, 28 Bonham Strand, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong, SAR, China
Laura Hendriks
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Ion Beam Physics, ETH Zurich, Otto-Stern-Weg 5, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland
Mantana Maurer
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Ion Beam Physics, ETH Zurich, Otto-Stern-Weg 5, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland
Maria Belen Röttig
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Ion Beam Physics, ETH Zurich, Otto-Stern-Weg 5, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland
*
*Corresponding author. Email: hajdas@phys.ethz.ch.

Abstract

The bomb-peak signal preserved in the Arches® cotton paper was used to detect art forgeries imitating the work of Chinese artist T’ang Haywen (1927–1991). The dating of seven legitimate T’ang Haywen art pieces showed that the timing of the paper production was consistent with the artist’s use of Arches® paper starting in the early 1980s. The measured F14C of the paper from the 14 suspected forged paintings shows that the support material was produced in the last decade (2008–2011), therefore the art pieces could not be genuine T’ang Haywen works.

Type
Conference Paper
Copyright
© 2019 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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Footnotes

Selected Papers from the 23rd International Radiocarbon Conference, Trondheim, Norway, 17–22 June, 2018

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