In 2006, Dr Marion F. Mecklenburg (Smithsonian Institution, USA) donated part of the Mecklenburg Paint Reference Collection to the Universitat Politècnica de València (Spain). The collaboration between the two institutions has continued since then, and these samples have been an invaluable resource for joint research into the behaviour and degradation of paints.

The majority of the collection comprises commercial paint samples as well as control oil paint samples consisting of various pigments bound with different types of oil as a binding medium, and containing no additives. Dr Mecklenburg cast these samples in the 1980s and 1990s, and they have been ageing naturally under controlled room conditions ever since. Additionally, our research team has been casting further control oil paint films in recent years for testing at various stages of their drying and film-forming processes.

Samples of natural and synthetic adhesives are also available in the reference collection. We are currently working on characterising these samples using different analytical techniques. Our aim is to create a comprehensive catalogue of all the samples in the collection, alongside the analytical test results for each sample, and make this information available to the scientific community for research purposes.

We will update the information on this website as soon as it is available.