LED bulbs can damage paintings
Letizia Monico investigated the cause in her doctoral thesis.
"That kind of yellow paint is very sensitive to green and blue. I would advise museums not to use LED bulbs any more as they emit at lot of blue light.”
The researchers used powerful x-rays to examine a series of paintings by Van Gogh.
"We discovered that the Dutch master didn’t always use the same type of chrome-yellow paint.“
Van Gogh also used a lighter lemon-yellow and a lighter-still primula-yellow.
"These varieties have a different crystal structure, albeit combined with higher sulphur content. They react quiet adversely to light rays. After just a few days of our tests they changed colour from to brown and olive green. We discovered this unstable form of chrome yellow paint in a number of very well-known paintings like the 'Portrait of Gauguin” and the ‘Sunflowers’.