Possibilities of energy-resolved X-ray radiography for the investigation of paintings.

X-ray radiographic images of paintings often show little or no contrast. In order to increase the contrast in radiographic images we measured the X-ray spectrum of a low power X-ray tube, after passing through the painting, with a high energy-resolution SDD detector. To obtain images, the detector is collimated with a 400 μm diameter pinhole and the painting was moved through the beam in the x and y-direction using a dwell time of a few seconds per pixel.