Portfolio
We have been working on a very wide range of artworks from ancient to contemporary period, including very famous artists. Our customer’s privacy is of paramount importance, therefore we cannot disclose information on many important discoveries. Here you can find some published examples of analyses we have performed.
We have been working on artworks by (in no particular order):
Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Raffaello, Tiziano, Artemisia Gentileschi, Vasari, Bronzino, Bellini, Canaletto, Tintoretto, Canova, Tiepolo, Correggio, Parmigianino, Antonello da Messina, Guido Reni, Buffalmacco, Filippino Lippi, Pontormo, Rosso Fiorentino, Della Robbia, Del Sarto, Salai, Bruegel, Rembrandt, Rubens, Goya, Cranach, El Greco, Durer, Velasquez, Van Dijk, Frans Hals, De Witte, Jean de Boulogne, Ribera, Van Gogh, Picasso, Gauguin, Degas, Monet, Matisse, Renoir, Daumier, Pissarro, Malevich, Modigliani, Miro, Poussin, Zoffany, Fontana, Burri, Chini, Lega, De Nittis, Fattori, Soffici, Morandi…
… and countless known and unknown forgers! 😉

Vasari, in the name of Michelangiolo
In 2018, a fundraising project “In the Name of Michelangelo” was set up, supported by 132 donors from fourteen different countries, for the restoration of the monumental tomb of Michelangiolo Buonarroti, 1564-1576, built on a project by Giorgio Vasari, who painted also the large altarpiece with the “Ascent to Calvary” scene. The painting had in […]

Carlo Dolci a master of the seventeen century
Carlo Dolci, also known as Carlino, was a beloved and acclaimed artist by the critics of his time, he was considered the greatest Florentine painter of the seventeenth century, contended by European nobility (although he almost never left the Tuscan territory). He was back in the spotlight thanks to the monographic exhibition at the Galleria […]

Picasso, it wasn’t you!
Art diagnostics is, among other things, an outpost for the protection of cultural heritage. The case we are presenting here is one of the many we have treated. Not all of them become public, and they do not all end in court. In France legislation imposes to destroy fake paintings. Perhaps this is too extreme. […]

POSSESSION – a tale of sick feelings for antiquities
In 2014 we participated in the studies conducted on archeological finds seized from the excavations of Paestum. A unique and exciting experience, due to the richness of the material and the unrivaled scenery of the park. The investigations were designed to contribute to an exhibition – Possession – which had the intent to highlight the […]

A portrait by Caravaggio?
Brazil welcomed the exhibition “Caravaggio and his followers: confirmations and problems” with extraordinary enthusiasm. The exhibition included 6 canvases painted by the Maestro and 14 works by the “Caravaggeschi”. The intent of the exhibition was also to update the panorama of studies on Caravaggio and his followers. In the rich catalog of the exhibition, for […]

The sophistication of Filippino
The Nerli altarpiece by Filippino Lippi (1457-1504), a magnificent panel still in the original location selected for it by the client Tanai de ‘Nerli -who is portrayed in the painting together with his wife Nanna- was restored by the talented Anna Teresa Monti. A detail of the IR Scanner reflectography of the Pala Nerli The […]

Protecting Bologna since centuries
After two years during which it was studied and restored, on May 4, 2013, the venerated image of the Madonna Di San Luca, patron saint of the city of Bologna, was carried in procession and hosted for a week in Bologna’s cathedral. The study of the icon was initiated for noble cause, namely for the […]

Under disguise
A supposed Mary Magdalen turned out, thanks to diagnostics and restoration, to be the portrait of a young noble woman After the restoration When thinking about the works of Giovanni di Battista di Iacopo, known as Rosso Fiorentino, you think of grotesque figures, occasionally having an almost demonic appearance. Figures completely deprived of those refined […]

Vasari in Bosco Marengo
In the mid-sixteenth century, when he was still a cardinal, the future Pope Pius V decided to found a Dominican convent in his native town, Bosco Marengo, a small town near Alessandria, hitherto poor and absolutely unknown. Not only that, a few months after his ascent to the papal throne, in the summer of 1566, […]

Seven Acts of Mercy by Caravaggio: a superb experience
Caravaggio escapes from Rome on 28 May, with the accusation of having killed Ranuccio Tommasoni and arrives on 6 October 1606 in Naples, where he immediately receives prestigious commissions, including the painting depicting the “Seven Works of Mercy” for the church of the then new brotherhood of the Pio Monte della Misericordia, where it is […]

Ligozzi: wonders of an expanding world
In 1577, Ligozzi was called to Florence by Francesco I Medici, a despotic Grand Duke with refined tastes, son-in-law of Ferdinand I of Habsburg, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. In Florence, despite the Renaissance cycle being exhausted, there was still a dense network of international relations, it was crossroads for people and knowledge, there […]

El Greco: new attribution at the Uffizi
When the painting “St. John the Evangelist and St. Francis of Assisi” entered the Uffizi collection as part of a donation, it was assumed to be a copy executed by the workshop or by disciples of El Greco. Indeed only a few people had seen it before and scholars had not even examined it, so […]

Giambologna’s Rape of the Sabines
The diagnostics performed on the ‘Ratto delle Sabine’ by Giambologna, at the Galleria dell’Accademia, in Florence, required many skills, since, among others, Xray, UltraSound and Geo-Radar methodologies were employed (with the help of S.T. Art-Test). The results led to unveil and understand some crucial information which was essential to plan and perform the restorative intervention which […]

Caravaggio: a copy? Multilayer shows it’s original!
The painting, which is owned by a private collector, was originally thought to be a copy of Caravaggio’s St. Jerome Writing (composed between 1607 and 1608), which is in the Oratory of St. John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta, Malta. Prof. Keith Sciberras of the University of Malta says that the painting does not evince Caravaggio’s “vigor” […]

Velazquez: data confirm authenticity of Waterseller
In preparation of the exhibition “Novecento sedotto” at Museo Bardini in Florence, restoration of the Waterseller painting of Velazquez from the collection of the Uffizi museum has taken place. Another version of the Waterseller is at the Wellington Musem in London and in Baltimore, and the attribution of the Uffizi painting to Velazquez has always been a matter […]

Leonardo: Salaì or da Vinci’s hand?
A superb painting was presented to public as it became, through a highly generous donation of Bernardo Caprotti, part of the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana collection. Art-Test had the true privilege to investigate it with IR Scanner Reflectography, IR false color, UV fluorescence and Multilayer Method. It resulted as one of the most amazing paintings we ever came […]

Caravaggio: discovery of self-portrait in Bacco
A recent analysis by Art-Test on the Caravaggio’s Bacchus has revealed the outline of a man’s face in the jug of wine in the foreground that is believed to be the self-portrait of the artist. The tiny image of the Renaissance master is hidden in a carafe of wine in his 1597 oil painting Bacchus, one […]

Raffaello: discovery of a forgotten PEARL
Art-Test contributed, with multispectral image analyses (XR, IR, VIS, UV), macrophotos and XRF results, to the finding of a lost painting by Raphael. A portrait of a woman that lay discarded for decades in the vault of a northern Italian palace is in fact the work of Renaissance great Raphael. The portrait was put in storage in […]

Pinacoteca of Siena: Art-test scans the collection
Art-Test started recently working in Siena, after winning the public competition published by Sovrintendenza of Siena and Grosseto. The project includes the analyses of a selection of masterpieces, both currently exposed and in the deposits, some of which never tested before. A database of diagnostic data, Xrays, IR reflectographies, techniques and materials concerning 100 paintings […]