Fingerprints

About the project

During the technical examination of sculptures made of fired clay (terracotta), as many traces as possible left during the production of the artwork are recorded. Besides toolmarks, join lines and voids the imprints left in the still malleable clay by the hands of the artist can often be found, either on visible or less accessible parts of objects. These imprints can potentially be used to ascertain the identity of the artist.

The artworks are selected jointly by a researcher from the CWI (Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica) and the conservator and curator of sculptures from the Rijksmuseum. The image acquisition takes place at the FleX-ray Laboratory and the image post-processing is done by the Computational Imaging group, both part of the CWI.

Aim of the project

The first step of the project is to acquire high resolution 3D images of a selection of terracotta sculptures from the Rijksmuseum that display partial fingerprints. The data will then be used to develop an algorithm to detect three-dimensional fingerprints on the surface of sculptures. Subsequently, software will be developed to extract and match the most informative markers from multiple fingerprints in order to define the levels of similarity or dissimilarity between them. The ultimate aim is to infer the artist’s identity.

Related events

• Dzemila Sero and Isabelle Garachon presented their work at the “Technical Art History mini-symposium: new perspectives & dimensions”, Amsterdam, 12/02/2020.

• Dzemila Sero co-organized with Simone Parisotto (postdoctoral researcher in Cambridge) the mini-symposium on “Cultural Heritage Imaging Science”, held at 2020 SIAM Conference on Imaging Science, 13 - 14 July 2020. The mini-symposium included three sessions, for a total of six international speakers. Her talk was featured in the SIAM Online News.