Supported projects

The deterioration of wall paintings depends in particular on the conservation conditions of the painting, its degree of exposure to heat, humidity, pollutants and natural or artificial light. The internship project will therefore be to set up a study of artificial aging of model paintings (protein binders applied to an inert support) in the presence or absence of different pigments, at different degrees of humidity and temperature. The proteins contained in these samples will then be extracted by adapting the method developed in the laboratory, because the presence of pigments could have an influence on the aging of the binders and disrupt the hydrolysis of the protein by trypsin. The extracts will then be analyzed by liquid chromatography on line with tandem mass spectrometry to highlight any possible modification of the proteins. The degradation kinetics of several binding proteins associated with different mineral pigments will be studied, in particular that of milk caseins and ovalbumin, the analysis of which has already been established in the laboratory, but also of vitellogenin and collagen.

Credit and legend: Mural painting, south chapel of Saint-Pierre Cathedral in Poitiers, LRMH, W. Nowik, 2019