Case study of IR reflectivity to detect and document the underdrawing of a 19th century oil painting

There are a number of paintings in the McClung collection [ East Tennessee History Center ] by East Tennessee artists of some notoriety. In the cleaning process, curators had noticed that a painting attributed to Lloyd Branson is actually painted over a previous painting or drawing. This underdrawing is only partially visible with the naked eye. Infrared Reflectography was used to detect and document the underdrawing. The top painting is oriented in the portrait direction with the subject being an American Civil War general by the name of John P. McCown. The underdrawing is oriented in the landscape direction with the subject being a mill scene, complete with a water wheel. Contrast optimization through the use of filters and spatial resolution enhancement by assembling a mosaic from a set of close-up images will be discussed.